Old man in a rocking chair

Sometime around midnight, most likely after, as that's the loneliest part of midnight, when its no longer, and you can make jokes that its today or tomorrow, it depends on who you are and how you see, that's when we may find each other, only it'll be me finding you like the hat i once lost and i came back to the same park bench a while later and it was lying in a puddle underneath, it seemed to not care regardless, but i picked it up and took it back home because it was my hat, even though i never wore it after that, that's how i find you, again and again, me looking for you and you seeing me and not, and so sometime after midnight strikes, behind some building, my eyes already starting to fill with tears, i can turn the corner and see you standing there, hair down, hair down, and maybe i'll look up just in time to see the great migration of the night clouds brushing gently on the lunar landscape, when on a beam my gaze returns to your earthly realm, you're not there.  i go on, i go on with a slight break in my heart, knowing the winds have blown and the circus has left town, only their sign bills remain and will for months on end, fading and torn, but reminders nonetheless.

Making a splash

Sit a while, dear son;
Here are biscuits to eat, and here is milk to drink;
But as soon as you sleep, and renew yourself in sweet clothes, I kiss you with a good-bye kiss, and open the gate for your egress hence.

Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams;
Now I wash the gum from your eyes;
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light, and of every moment of your life.

Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore;
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.

It is so easy to let your life be lead by others.  It's so very easy.  There is so much comfort in it, it's warm and reassuring.  And you can do it endlessly and no one will yell at you, no know will say stop, no one will question you because they are probably doing the very same thing.  How easy to let others decide what is right, what is wrong, moral and ethically, what is accepted behavior, what should be valued, what should be despised and avoided.  How easy it is to think you need something that only yesterday you never had, how easy to sit back and let others live your life, or to let others lives be ended for yours.  

I dont want to be alive, I am alive.  I want to free myself from self imposed and forced slavery from ideas, limitations, expectations, controls, rights and wrongs, thoughts of the future, thoughts of what if's.  Long enough have I lived a contemptible life, I will wash the gum from my eyes and venture forth.  No rules.  No plans.  No future.  Only today.  Only now. 

My First Day at Work

Entering upon these warmer days, the air of discontent and wrongdoing has reached the point of thickness once thought unreachable.  We have seen our peace and past systematically taken apart piece by piece only to be rebuilt into a concrete jungle gym of lies, evil pursuit, and corporate crimes against nature.  Our aggressors have names to which we can hold responsible.  But when can this climate of aggression be turned against those who are the aggressor?  Not until the small have the power and strength of the weak masses.  We must think of them in two ways, as our allies and as our enemies.  Ignorance is ignorance, whether by false personal betrayal to the self or by way of simple misunderstanding of our surrounding environment.  Both are unacceptable and should be the focus first of our attack before we can hope to consume the fires by which the aggressors feed.

The dark lady walks across my hand and fills my eyes with the discontent of a moon still oceanscape.  I’ll breathe her into me; infuse her hair with my lungs.  Entangled, we travel through braided wind and walk about the soft earth, the lives of a thousand trees lifelessly scattered about as we tread upon her.  Far off we hear the cries of the past creeping alongside the torn groves of our dissent, and their screams claw new tracks for which our blood may flow.

But again, the sunsets and our time as one must end.  She departs as smoke and through the last remaining rays I can see her, like a filter catching dust, she disperses into emptiness and leaves her void in the wake.  Lumbering about, with dusk in hand I continue to toil into the midnight’s breast where I sleep in his spotted bosom.  Dawn flirts with fire and sets the stage for the players to once again take position. On cue, the music starts and life act 1 begins.

These words like others cannot mask our failure to turn the tide of corporate power.  The free speech they invoke tramples upon our heads and forces us to see with blinders on.  To break from the path and see a new spectrum of light must take an awakening, a struggle of epic proportions. 

So we remain faithful to these lies of webbed deceit and we all believe, yes we all believe, that our words can strike a different beat and snare the lines they pull and tug we push and grunt for firmer grip. Oh, oh how the rain transforms our dirty view into a sea of bloody faces swept aside by the river mud—a flash, a flash—are they drowning or are we sinking while they swim ahead?

Ahead, our neon idols strip and dance erotica which we cannot look away from.  They are our muses, our new art culture and squeeze into the tiniest crevices.  Our glass world reflects the soft buzz of life and shines their loving warmth across all lands.  But in the mind like an umbrella we can shield ourselves from the storm and past the hypnotizing sexuality of our new gods, into an unbranded desert primed for the first coat of life.

Winter Riding - Latest from Fietspad

Tights? Check. Two pairs of socks? Check. Ridiculous amounts of clothing on? Check. And so, your ready to head out on the snowy streets in below freezing temperatures for what was once a peaceful, warm bicycle ride. Now, your winter riding.

In the New England area, we have a thing called winter. It lasts a while, and it gets pretty cold. And snowy, often both. For many, this means that there is a “season” to riding as bicycle. Probably sometime from May until October. But what about the rest of the months? Where do you store your love of riding during those months? Well, for the few, its on the saddle where it belongs. It’s called winter riding.
Those who consider themselves knowledgeable of the finer details that make winter riding what it is, can and do have varied opinions regarding gear, tires, clothing, etc. Of course, these same people have these same varying opinions about biking no matter what part of the year, so really, it best to just ignore them all together.
As there are such fewer bikers on the road in the winter, it lends itself well to each biker creating their own style, their own preferences of how to best proceed in the winter landscape. There are really two main areas of concern for the winter biker. The road and the fear of freezing to death. Let us examine the road.

Normally, the road is dry (or wet) and hands out traction like it was kittens at a shelter. Even if it rains, the tires you have are most likely already prepared to handle it. But, dear reader, the winter road is paved not in sugar snaps and childhood dreams, but in slush, black ice, snow drifts, disgusting dirty snow, hidden bike lanes, salt and dirt. That once peaceful bike lane has become a mousetrap of hell for you. The bike lane is gone. The slippery slush makes your back tire spin out of control, sliding left and right as your grip becomes ever tighter hoping to regain what little control you had. Your turns mimics of turtles not knowing if that shiny patch is ice. Your bike is covered in what one could only describe as modern post colonial Dada-esq neo art. That hill you normally shift up to conquer like the hero you are, nope. Derailleur is frozen. Downhills become cathedrals full of prayers that your brakes will work, oh please oh please…
Whew! You made it to the coffee shop. You locked up your bike on top of three feet of piled snow, and walk inside. Oh..my..god..its 1,000,000 degrees inside!! This leads us to the second concern of the intrepid winter biker: Clothing.

Before embarking on your trip, you are warm but have devils dances in your head of the cold awaiting. Some wear “performance” clothing, crafty creating layers according to instructions. Others, have three long sleeves shirt that when worn all at once mimics what they mean by the word warmth. Regardless, once outside, for several minutes, the bone chilling cold and winds reduce your temperature to a laugh of what it once was. Ahh, but that varied terrain is much harder to bike in, and your blood starts squirming, your head starts a rolling and before you know it, you are warm. Pretty much. Your exposed face is nearing frostbite, you realize that your plumber’s crack is getting tickled by the cold, but more or less, you did it! You are braving the cold! Warm and confident, you pull along side the coffeehouse, silently mocking all those poor bastards not riding their bikes,. Leaving the best parking spaces available for you. So you walk in, prepared for applause and tinker tape, when the heating system set at nuclear levels, hits your layers, sweating, bike hot body. In a tizzy, you dance your self out of layer upon layer of clothing that at one moment was all that was between you and instant death, and now mocks you by threatening to boil you alive.

Coffee. Its so good. A mug, a friend, some comics and maybe a game of Othello and its time to part. Ahh crap, all your cloths are a bit wet form the snow and ice that froze to them during your ride only to defrost during your enjoyable coffee. Oh well, you re-don your chilly damp gear, smiling nonetheless, as you know that you are a winter biker.

A Hokkaido Bike Ride: Part Three

 

It was with a final dash of 100 miles that I rolled, with the setting sun casting glows upon the Universal Studios in the distance, into my final port of call: Osaka. I had been biking for two months, covering 3,000 miles, crisscrossing three out of the four main Japanese islands.



I went from coast to coast, inland over mountains, along streams and rivers, around lakes, and up and over the Alps. And so, my first thought when I stopped in the water side park that I would camp in that night in Osaka was, “ Thanks god I don’t have to pack up my tent one more time”. The routine, the rout aspects of touring, and I suppose of any long endeavor, were wearing me a little thin. Striking the tent each morning only to pitch it later that night, over and over again. Taking everything off my bike only to reload it the next morning. These daily occurrences, while part of the overall touring experience, had lost their excitement after doing it for two months.

What hadn’t lost its charm however, was pedaling for hours upon hours upon hours each day. From before even coming to Japan, I had been biking for nearly a month in parts of Europe and Ireland. I had been sitting on a saddle, churning my legs, finding the hand position that kept my pinky fingers from going numb, non-stop. And it never once wore thin. Sitting at this computer, there are daily things I do that aren’t exciting, but are part and parcel of my life. What keeps me going, what keeps those routines from taking over and dulling me, is that each and every day I get on my bike. It might not be for many miles, but not a day goes by that I don’t crank it out a little.

Every time I hit the jagged coastlines of Japan, I was overwhelmed by their beauty, by their cutting grace. Every river I pedaled alongside gurgled and flowed within me. Every mountain pass I struggled to overtake, every downhill that I swore I was going to crash, pulsed through my veins. Every cookie cutter clogged city I sped to get through, every small fishing village I slowed to enjoy were roadside attractions enticing my along my way.

Throughout my time in Japan, I was being spoken to by more than one language I didn’t understand. Each pedal stroke though helped me decipher what was being said, and as I appreciated each day and each offering that was given, I slowly became more fluent (my Japanese remained shitty). Getting bummed early on in Hokkaido, getting soaked and distressed in Kamikochi, being nearly blown off the map by a typhoon; were all just not-so-gentle conversations. They, along with all that I saw and experienced, were really saying the same thing over and over: Smile.

So I smile. I get on my bike and I smile because I love to bike. I close my eyes and dream of Japan, and I smile. I plan future bike tours, and I smile. I brush my teeth, cook my food, go to work and do all the other things needed to be done, and I smile. I see others on bikes and I smile. Its hard work to be grumpy on a bike, and for that I smile too.


            The final part of my three part series of my Japan bike ride featured on Fietspad

Stupid school girls believe in civilization

In times, as ruffled skirt floating in the shimmering pond, blank pages as days and avalanches of letters, the Divine Erato stares out, her stool of wood, her corner barren and void, she breathes the filtered air through the bare limbs and fallen leaves, her dance scatters carefully laid dust and debris, and havoc visits once again upon our eyes that she had once so gently laid to sleep, and if she were to fall from above, she floats as a feather, the Divine Erato is the setting and rising sun over the river bend, failing to see her there, fear not, the veil of dreams and impossible thought will lead your way...

Why I keep napkins by my bedside

Do you ever dream and wake with the juice of a peach running down your chin, your fingers sticky sweet and fuzzy bits left on your lips?  Do you ever close your eyes and let them sink down under their own luscious weight, to let kisses blanket them?  Do you candidly eye someone's long hair as you twist your own locks and curls?

Do you dream asleep or while awake?
Do you dream?
Do you live?
What do you do?