- A warrior traveller doesn't underestimate or overestimate anything. A quiet, disciplined fighter who's elegance is so extreme that no one, no matter how hard they look, will ever find the seam where all that complexity comes together.
CARLOS CASTANEDA - The Active Side of Infinity
Conquering generals of Rome during street parades had a slave who was paid to to whisper in their ear that all this fame and glory is but transitory. "if we are victorious in any way, we don't have anyone to whisper in our ear that our victories are fleeting. Sorcerers however do have the upper hand as beings on their way to dying. They have someone whispering in their ear that everything is ephemeral. The whisperer is death, the infallible advisor, the only one who won't ever tell you a lie."
CARLOS CASTANEDA - The Active Side of Infinity
How do you know you are not real?
NWR
you should also have the link for GARTH on Radio in PRESS. Right? I still have to email you the screening details and the weird stuff background photo
it was the night after his first day in the army
he said it would be the first night he would sleep alone
in three years
another soldier said “ I don’t care what you say, I am not getting in there with you!”
i wish I had of said that
instead of remembering the exchange
----
a woman can be the gateway to a great adventure
forgive sleazy fellows
who are really just bored
in search of intimacy with another human being
----
out
in the forest
I wanted to take a piss
I took a short walk
and came across a little kid’s birthday party
like the ones I used to go to
----
an Aboriginal called me “white trash”. I like the idea of being white trash, but I am not. Had a private school education since I was 5.
----
two girls came to my flat last night
one early evening
one late
neither told their mothers where they really were
----
he walked the spring afternoon streets in a horny haze
----
I don’t want to satisfy my father, or the tendencies implanted by him.
----
circle of friends ; a secret language
----
Michael is getting engaged next week. Tonight we were sitting around a pool hall, where his fiancé works as a waitress. She passes by me, eyeing me at the same time I eye her.
She knows I don’t like her.
----
At the beginning of the dinner I told them that I had been kicked out of the army. By the end of the night they all knew why.
----
he said “you’re a psycho”
i said “ what makes you think that?”
he said “ I got a nose for my own kind”
----
retreat into the subconscious
----
he sat, laid, stood by the radio
all day
tuning one station, then the next
to hear the one song
that reminded him of her
----
their lives have already been lived
----
she told me she lived in a caravan
for about $45 dollars a week
I thought that was pretty cool
----
saw a cute girl on the train looking at me
she looked away after returning my smile
probably didn’t want to give me the wrong idea
or maybe she was tired and her eyes happened to fall on me
she was reading a Francis Farmer book
a good conversation starter if I was sitting next to her
I got off first
I walked down the platform and dared myself to look back at her
summed up the confidence
looked
she smiled
so did I
and walked down the platform
as the train took her away and ended what could have been a beautiful thing
----
a brief conversation with a stranger
let it all hang out
the rush of being honest
----
what beautiful streets people leave behind
when they park their cars
turn out their lights
----
a lady on the train
to close to get a really good squiz
from the near corner of my eye
she looked some old forgotten European movie actress
she could have been a Loren or an Ekberg
there was dulled shine there
and a defeatedness and anonymity
----
THE FIGHTER
muscle beauty
gloves and short and chins and shins of steel
wooden knuckles and knees
bobbing and weaving
flat-nosed and unself-conscious
the world is his prey
he does not isolate himself in his environment
Automatic fury
he knows what he wants
he knows without knowing he knows
a beautiful animal in a ring/cage
Clad in civilian clothes he is still a fighter
The reflexes of a pigeon
a basic sportsman
he wields no gun
or hunting knife
complete in his nakedness
he can never lose his weapon
or misplace it
or have it stolen
he sleeps with it
fucks with it
holidays and journeys
----
“some outlaws live by the side of the lake”
some artists live by the side of the lake
----
Kerouacian visions
the steel of train tracks
the feel of highway asphalt
the picture of highway thumbing
self-containment with a knapsack safely fastened
visions of journeys and adventures
of pleasant surprises and dark encounters
of life threatening interlinks
freight trains skimming the surface of the land
full power
diesel
through meadows and pastures and unsuspecting cattle
summer sun
heat of day
whizzing cars
open windows
clean air
what pictures will you paint?
will you retain the image
the smell
the feel
or will it take its place in the dreamy montage of memory
the air of the day is different to the air of the vision
usually worse (for me)
but that moment when it is the vision
is exhilaration
----
Morrison is in my blood again
after 6 years
his visions
his sounds
are part of the picture I want to re-experience
unconscious
amoral
automatic action and thought
wind and burn of the cigarette in my throat
in my heart
spontaneous life
or a short cut to death
hitch-hikers
journeymen
adventures
loneliness
temporary comfort of strangers
cold bus shelters
enviable men and sexy women
cool car and capitalism
limited entertainment
a life slept
pain
discomfort
self-consciousness
the itch
the knot in my gut
the will to move and never stop
road
cigarettes
notepad
highway
night
trucks
midnight lights
insects never seen or heard before
a stranger
a joint
a new town
displaced fear
sleeping the night behind the house
high
he blazes up in comfort
me feeling moral fear of drug addiction
he is cool
I am tight
though it is me on the other side of the country
not he
risking life and limb for adventure
a few precious moments
something sacred
never experienced
something truly boastful
(executing visons)
THE DOORWAY MAN
He crouches in doorways, uncommitted, not in this room or the next
He holds no expectations
No opinions
For days he can sit in his room
He washes the dishes in the dark, a slow careful tinkering and rattling
At night he walks the streets from one suburb to the next and returns at the break of day.
Ask him what he was looking at outside the window,
he may whisper “ I was just watching a bird”
THE SOAP BOY
It started when he was 5. Children scraped past him in kindergarten and asked the teacher “what is that mark on my uniform?”
When The Soap Boy was 12, he tripped and rolled down the hill at school and this is when the teachers realized there was something wrong with The Soap Boy, because when they found him at the bottom of the dewy hill, he was a great deal smaller.
From then on, The Soap Boy couldn’t make any contact with anybody.
He was unable to be hugged, or kissed, and this broke his heart because The Soap Boy needed affection too.
When he was 16, The Soap Boy was carrying the shopping for his mother, when grey clouds slipped in front of the blue sky and rain and hail seized the town. There was no shelter to protect The Soap Boy and after three minutes all that remained of The Soap Boy was three bags of groceries, and a small sludge of soap, trickling down the side of the curb and into the drain.
----
THE SEDUCTION
He sat in the bus stop shelter. When he saw the woman two sensations hit him. One that she was very sexy, and two, that she was very ugly. The woman was very old. Maybe about sixty? But he could see she had a terrific figure beneath her trench coat. She seemed very introverted in her manner of walking. As she passed him by on her way to the supermarket, he saw she was blonde, dyed blonde. Blow-waved back as well. Her skin was wrinkly. Her legs were near perfect. He felt the stab of sexual attraction for this woman and wondered what to do next.
When she left the supermarket pushing her trolley, he approached her directly.
“Hi” he said smiling. Nervously she responded with her greeting.
“Can I walk you to your car?”
The woman continued pushing the trolley through the parking lot. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I find you attractive” he replied. He continued to tell her that he wanted to be with her that morning if she had the time.
“I have the time.” she responded, only looking at the ground before the trolley. She enquired meekly about his daily schedule. He said he had university classes. As they drove in her little blue sports car, she enquired further about his field of study and future directions. The boy responded with the appropriate answers but mostly thought how good her body would look underneath her trench coat, though he did hold back at the sight of her aging face.
When they stepped into her sky lit kitchen the lady was unhesitant about holding the boy before her and kissing him. He too immediately responded groping her breasts and her ass through the trench coat. He thought she was a surprisingly good kisser as she reached down her body and grabbed the back of her thighs. He sensed her smiling in her kiss and then she led him down the corridor. The boy looked back at the kitchen as she led him into a room.
Inside the room, which looked more like a guest’s room than a personal room, the lady suddenly exhibited a confidence and aggression she hadn’t before. She sat the boy down on an opulent chair and stood directly in front of him. She began untying the belt of her trench coat. The boy was surprised at her sudden directness and it occurred to him that she had probably done this with many men. He also wondered whether she had a husband. Though by now he knew the lady had fantastic legs, he wasn’t sure what was inside the trench coat. The lady was looking older than before as she undid the belt of the trench coat, and the boy decided that he wanted to make love to the lady in the dark. The lady’s belt was fully loosened now and the trench coat opened. The boy looked down from the lady’s face to her stomach and couldn’t believe what he saw – a stomach, kidney, intestine and other organs that he couldn’t name. The lady grabbed the boy’s head and pulled it into her organs, screaming at him to lick and kiss them.
----
he’s only 23 years old or so
with eyes of infinite wisdom
how the body is just a shell
----
People thought him crazy, destructive
cos’ he wasn’t scared of death
he knew it was just a doorway into another world
While we all cling to our ignorance and fear
----
I stood on the highway
Nighttime, dark
Only hitching ‘cos I wasn’t tired and I’d be bored trying to get to sleep
Didn’t expect a ride
I got one
An old white van
Stopped just before the bridge
I got in and the dim globe on the roof of the van show me what looked like Charles Manson’s gang. Bearded hippie-looking men all with a similar strange beard,.
We drove on.
They asked me if I wanted to stay the night with them. I saw myself being hacked to death. I saw myself being given a room for the night.
“yes” I said.
and I had one of the best nights of my life.
20 minutes later I was sitting around a camp fire with a dozen strangers, but not looking like the mothers, kids, men from our world.
In their world they made their own electricity, supplied their own water and educated their kids themselves.
One of the best nights of my life.
----
I deserve my place on the mantel with other hero artists
Part of me cares for it, part doesn’t
To have it
To not need it
To throw it away
To have the choice
----
broken the shell of self-deception (I think)
life now has a taste of adventure
a re-birth
a freshness
----
this beard doesn’t belong on my face anymore
it feels like a fungus
----
midnight
highway
midnight music
midnight cigarette
midnight facial growth
midnight streets
midnight convenience stores
midnight petrol fumes
midnight lights
midnight cruising
----
power & loneliness
self-completion
----
I got my bullshit detector on tonight
and this is a major find
----
i eat well
i sleep well
smoke well
----
Beards grow faster than hair
----
our laughs are prayers
----
the star at the edge of the cloud
----
He wrote the novel across the four walls of his bedroom
----
we giggled, but we never laughed
----
you have to get dirty to get clean
----
A sunny day
Somewhere in the USA
The kid stood outside the back of the diner in the afternoon heat
waiting for his girl to finish her shift
----
I love the movies. People in the movies don’t stare back.
----
To gain weight he didn’t take a shit for almost two weeks
----
He had a bald spot in his Mohawk
----
we bled in each other’s wounds
----
One day an ant found a movie camera and made a movie
----
A banker has a foot in one world, a robber a foot in the other. An artist has a foot in both.
----
“You’re an asshole, asshole”
----
“I’m into the reaction business”
----
“Did you answer the phone” he asked
“It didn’t ring” she replied
-
Gregory Pakis
1996-2007
|