Rule Zero

Whispers from the Abyß

 

 

Posted on November 11, 2017

Opera Rülë Zërœ

A Modassic Classic

They cut the throats of our children

And spit on the graves of our mothers.

They laugh and point at the teachers

And make fun of all the others.

From the wordless winds

To the unuttered prayer

Fists buried in the dirt

Over the bondage the profane wear.

It was a day to never forget,

That day I surrendered my regret.

I learn the war that I fought within,

Should end the day I allowed my living to begin.

The only enemy that lived was me

And not one person can disallow me to be.

JdB

Introduction – *whispers, chants, spoken on loop*

Yes. Men are particularly good at looking for what they are wearing.

•••set to low bass throat chanting•

I am the Siberian Tiger

I have the colour of the shadow

I have the colour of the snow

You will never see me

Wherever you go.

Something that as a rule is unspoken.

Like the wind at night.

That leaves words and your mouth

And no thoughts in your head.

Only the silent feeling instead.

•••

•••Liszt Inspired traditional operatic movement with intense choral harmonies and crescendos•

Our feet planted upon the ground,

Our Mother our keeper,

Your secrets such glorious sound!

We feel your heart through our feet

We hear your pain though not in vain,

You must not admit defeat!

Mother Earth! Conductor of life!

You hold us upon the sand and

You allow our touch upon the Stars,

We love you and offer you our hand.

Earth to Stars! Stars to Earth!

Our souls doth touch the Stars!

They are the Fathers of the Earth!

Our heavenly reservoirs.

Children of Stars, Children of Earth.

Listen not to the tyrants!

They know not your true worth.

They do not hear our Mother’s cry,

They only feast on the blood

Of what misery has let die.

From unto them none of whom she would speak,

••••

The shade of the Sun, The light glimmer in Abyss.

The Fools tongue leaps amidst the Hermits flame.

A poem A story

Heaven High

And Hell for glory

Love is law

A foundation A Door

True-Will to explore

One Abyss to the Next

The wicked take no rest

Dancing flames and ember

Take no rest and dance forever

•SLOW FADE TO BLACK•

•••

•••<silence>DEEP OCEAN BLUE – Projections of deep sea creatures transitioning to schools of fish – transitions to fire volcanos lots of CRIMSON RED to lush forest and rolling green irish hill/mountain landscapes to light and wispy clouds in pure SKY BLUES•••

•••Fade to DEEP ROYAL PURPLE•

Spoken to harmonic elven/Celtic chorus•••

I can already imagine the horrors intertwined with a furious and bittersweet beauty… Why is honesty lost on so many. I would rather someone run with the truth than stay and live lie.

No mystery, just some unexplainable tangibles…

In the company of bad men, the meek shall either rise, or be crushed.

As the fire gets a gust of strong air, as the smoke circles above the dance of Earth, our mother, we embrace the serpents that writhe beneath the surface. Their venom cannot hurt us, for we have nothing that we want to take from them. For we drink upon the water and do not feast upon the Earth. We are fire, we spit out what we do not need

…There is going to be so much more less than there ever was before…

If God dies first, so does then this Earth, if Earth dies, so do then we.

If Earth dies first, God will live.

Now tell me, whose side do you think I am on here?

•••

*

**

Fire of Joan – Introduce Witch hunt theme

As it were that the only thing remaining after the fire of Joan was her beating heart. Bones do not burn in such a fire, except that fire born of the very soul that dwells in the repository of the heart.

The spark immortal by which it is proven, that no one thing rules but all things as one.

•••Instrumental Fade out to smoke flames and murmured prayers• Lights fade to black•••

•••Fades into Duo Drama 1• Gentle string music plays quietly in the background as stage lighting fades into a warm forest green glow• Two figures can be seen to appear slowly into vision from stage middle. A man kneeling, supporting himself upon a sickle and a goddess like figure standing above him with her hand resting upon his head.•••

Goddess: You have got a long time on this planet my boy, and we have a garden to grow. Have you learnt to never to farm me again? To harvest my fruit as they fall? To only hunt what it is you need to survive? To nurture my natural stocks and abundance so that there may be plenty for all?

Awakening Farmer: Yes. I am shamed… I lost my way.

Goddess: But how? The way was under your very feet.

Awakening Farmer: It was a very bad idea that wrought me undone, it was the idea that I could dominate.

Goddess: And what was it you learned from this?

Awakening Farmer: I learned a lesson deep… If I dominate the environment I am within, I can no longer let it in. If I shut it out completely, so do I shut out the beauty of my very existence.

Goddess: Good. We have a garden to grow. [dramatic pause] How do you fight fire with love?

Awakening Farmer: Oh do not be silly, such a thing cannot be nor does exist.

•••AW attempts to shake hand off from head and stand and G gently pushes him back down•••

Goddess: Oh but I am serious, most serious…

Awakening Farmer: Well tell me of this fantasy that has born your childish question?

Goddess: It is simple, all you have to do is be at its side, peacefully in motion or sitting completely still. Then there is no fight. Only love. You cannot fight anything with love, for this no fight when it comes to love.

Awakening Farmer: Please tell me of your next lesson cloaked in trick question, for now you have my attention.

Goddess: I have nothing more to impart until you pledge to me my child.

Awakening Farmer: I pledge my love and devotion to this Earth. She whom gave me my life and whom I will give mine.

••• AW stands, embraces G, both start dancing slowly together in cyclic motions holding hands arms apart• Music grows louder and picks up intensity• Center stage illuminates bright white where AW and G stand• Outer perimeter remains forest green with added projection of foliage and budding and burgeoning floral imagery.•••

Goddess:

Woven not bound

Never lost

And always found

Awakening Farmer:

The gaslight has run out of steam

As the man that no longer dominates,

Allows the sacred mother to dream.

**

It is they whom tell me how to paint my pictures, and they whom tell me how to dance, that are the ones I can no longer dance nor paint pictures for. To them I am nothing, and to those with their grace let me be, I am everything.

People will take a preconceived notion and wildly bludgeon a thing of beauty to death with it. Worst of all is the insidious righteousness instilled within the perpetrator of such blind acts that inevitably seep into folk around them like a poison that pushes all things different and strange deeper into the woods.

Not everything that disappears into the woods ever comes back. Yet sometimes they do, and in great number.

_-Oh for the lonely, lost and traumatised souls that wander through these gates.

All of the broken things that the comfortable, complacent and cold society hates.

Were my hands as big as my heart I could scoop them up and carry them away.

Long and far from here, to a new world and a bright and clear day.

Leaving the woes along the road side like rocks useless and unwanted from the pack.

Embracing all the things that this comfortable, cold, and complacent society does lack.

_-At which point do the comforts and fortifications become a prison? At which point do we cease to ignore the wolf at the door, open it, and decide to put a spear through its head?-_

••Do not throw plastic in the hippies fire…

Around here we do not burn on wanton desire••

•My body is a temple – My brain is a blasphemer•

There are so many colours…

Never enough words

One big picture

And only two hands

The card ye hold

Of a story untold

Known only by those

Whom freedom they chose.

From the bondage of society

To the prison of piety,

Ye all whom from such shackles run

Know the future comes from the present undone.

•••••

Oh how I ache,

For somebody dear

To be close and near.

With a gentle caress

To dissolve my fear.

For someone to hold me,

Whilst I gently cry

And whimper and sigh.

Her fingers to rub the wounds

As I let my ego die.

•••••

I am older than all your countries yet free to live in none.

So as I have and always will I shall bow to Mother Gaia.

So as I will dance beneath the Sun and Moon.

So as I will bathe beneath the Stars and as I tend to gardens whilst said Star dust slowly falls.

You can keep your silly walls and political yawls as those jolly boats hold five too many Peters and Pauls for me.

Cast me to Atlantis in dingy without oar,

Wherever I shalt berth, I will find uncharted land and somewhere new to moor.

I am not the wall, yet I am the house but I am also the door.

I raise the Stone.

I build the Fire.

I drink upon the Water.

I dance upon the Earth.

I flit amongst the Æthyr and float about the Air.

And I revel with good company and wine. Usually with a close circle of 9.

Yes. It is I.

It is I whom thou can never be, forth thou think thou art separate of me.

I am the mask beneath the mask eternally revealing in perpetuity.

I am the infinite shroud wherein the abyss lie veiled, the black hole unending in which light must prevail.

I am the duck unfrozen by snow.

The actor dancing, not acting, yet stealing the show.

Who am I? Will you ever know?

I am the unshifting foundations firm within the sand.

I am the mountains and I am the sky. I am the rivers, valleys and canyons spread wide.

I am the beast in each of us that stirs inside, I am the angels floating about the heavens held high.

I am nothing other than whatever I am by the moment, so I flit here, I flit there…

Usually without underwear.

Every time Moon’s womb be full, I warm my bare derrière by Fire’s warm, dancing sky-clad beneath stars as I was originally born.

I am cloaked yet beneath and within completely naked. No fig leaf to hide what I do not shame.

Nor do I bear dogma in which to carve my name.

The only real shame is of Fires lost to fools and those in vain.

I am the Mother and I am the Assassin.

I am the Father and I am the Light.

All the while my hands reach above the Heavens stretched high and my feet dancing deep bellow yonder Hell’s blight.

6000 years ago I was of Sun and Moon and a child of the Forrest.

I was the dancer, I was the singer, I was the medicine man and I was the bringer.

I was the breaker, the fixer and all round mixer.

Anytime your flame flickered out I would tell you stories of humour and stories of Light, the spark that rekindled your Spirit in flight.

Times have changed, now

Son Mother Father Daughter

are lead by Kin to slaughter.

I am who I am and everything I am not, yet now I am bipolar to you vulgar lot. No threat, a quiddity, just a unique ability…

The Communists play the key of G, yet AUM in my heart is played Harmonic C.

So keep your stinking hamster wheel, you can keep the bloody lot.

When the muck bucket tips and covers you all, I am free then, as once again we all must have to live together, as one clan, one people, surviving off the Land.

Now I am flitting off in chase of Sun and Moon, and glad I am to be surviving off the land soon.

That serpent in thy belly.

Is no enemy.

That serpent in your belly wishes to rise then dance then sing.

The serpent yearns to transcend whilst thy heart lay dormant.

Let that spitting cobra rise from thy loins and let it sink its teeth deep into thy heart.

Once the Serpent enters the sanguine embrace of the heart.

Once…

At that once the One no longer is at the mercy of the lower instinct yet that instinct intensifies.

The fangs in sanctifying embrace of the Sanguine force and Cosmic Rhythm only ever found by Anarchy of Heart shall bring One to be.

No longer the man can trust his mouth.

No longer can the man embrace his mind.

No longer will his eyes tell a tale free from illusion.

No longer shall his ears hear the true song of Mother Gaia Mother Earth.

No longer his lip shall utter axiom nor least vague truth.

The man loses all sight ‘cept his hands.

The man’s feet no longer blindly march.

The man no longer lusts with his loins yet shalt feel in thy loins the holy sodom in thy name Love and thy expression and thy intertwined bliss of physical form in submission to nothing other than embrace.

Still that man is fool to trust his loins for that is the flicking tail of the Serpent distracting the man from the Cobra’s fangs and the righteous yearning of a heart set free.

Upon such fangs, upon which the Real Work must be done.

Transmute that Spitting Cobra’s poison into milk and honey.

Feed that Heart.

Then in a world upon which the deceptions of physical form hang in the air as miasma with only hands that can see…

…the man can then only harbour trust for One thing.

The Man can then only trust his Heart.

That Heart shall never lie.

Shall he never disgrace it – Shall it never betray him.

The Serpent risen Illumined by the Light of Love.

The risen Serpent is fire.

Fire is immortality.

The flickering tail is the fire of charisma and the flicker is style and the flicker is both root and stem of the flower – Still trust that tail not!

The unfolding lotus within.

It is we that usher in the next.

Flickering tails shalt take root.

Thy feet below thy Hells.

Thy Hands above the Heavens.

The Man that bows to nothing other than that song of Gaia in his beating Heart and shall bow to no man.

That man shalt become No Man and never shall his work end.

Never shall his love cease to be.

No longer a man – Now just a being.

Transcendental and Ascendant.

Propelled by love in strength.

Love Immortal.

Love.

Love is the only solid foundation of Will.

Not nor ever want…

That salt in thy sand, thy lord put in mine hand, when the mania shifted and my depression lifted, mine whirling dervish was no longer a dance of pain.

 

 

Never go to War Alone Pt 3 – The opposite of a suicide note.Posted on October 16, 2016

 

They say someone will come along in your life and start a fire within you and that fire will burn eternal. Yet that someone may be fleeting, only present for a moment, and never to return; thus leaving you alone to attempt to understand something no one else ever will. The first time in a long time, as I stand here tending to these flames seething and coursing through my being, I no longer feel alone, I no longer secretly wish to die, and my well of anger has shallowed and soon shall only remain to be a trickle… you know… for times like when I twist my ankle while flitting around in the dark or when I attempt to play online poker whilst drunk and torch the five measly dollars that took days to carefully accumulate. Yet those are stories for another time. This story is about love and attachment.

It is easy to get attached to things and it is easy to love – Yet sometimes I struggle when navigating those seas and their swells so as to to maintain my grace and not look the fool. Always in hindsight I understand where things have gone wrong and what I have done so as to make myself look like the fool. The hard part though, is maintaining the virtue of those lessons during a manic episode. It is in that abyss where I gather the most memories that lead to the shame, guilt, and innumerable bottomless pits of depression that seem to go on for months and sometimes years. The suicide rate for males over the age of 26 with bipolar disorder is over 65%. I’m 30 years old and now I am starting to feel like a survivor. I’m also enjoying the longest and the most positive run of stability since I had my first major depression at the age of 12 and not to forget my first manic episode at age 22. It could even be argued that my childhood before age twelve was one long manic episode; as I remember experiencing weeks on end of insomnia that would be followed by 16 hours or more of sleep if I was afforded the opportunity to stay in my room for that long.

For ten long years from the point of adolescence I swam in a sea of depression, I contemplated suicide on a daily basis. As easy as it could have been to die at my own hands, it was all too hard to leave those I love, even when I was so unwell that I could not love them the way I wanted to as well as the way they deserved. Without these people I would likely have committed suicide. Even with so much love around me… I nearly did. There were people special in my life that I shared some of these loving people with; sadly those special people did commit suicide. Not all of them had bipolar – Suicide can touch us all.

As I contemplate my words thus far, I start to reflect upon the things that have held me in at least some ways together enough so that I do not commit the ultimate crime upon myself, and rob myself of experiencing and interacting with a world filled with wonder and beauty. You know… Things that give one a sense of purpose, things that make one smile, the things one loves to share, and things one loves to receive.

Things that make me forget about the darkness, horror, deceit, and tyranny that also permeate throughout existence. My sense of purpose has been hard won after all these years of burning bridges whilst in the midst of my manias and torment. I have scared away genuine people who did not know me as well as those that have been long in my life. Sometimes genuine people, who failed to recognise my torment in their lack of understanding had shown their darker side and nothing short of whipped me through the street. Others had turned their back… Others simply hate me and I understand why… And I do not blame them. As much as my illness is not who I am, I cannot blame my bad behaviour on the gnomes and fairies. I blame it on my own lack of understanding and insight, and that is my responsibility; for ignorance is not a plea. Without a purpose I would probably take responsibility in the wrong way and simply end it. The most haunting question to myself of my life is simply, ‘How could I hurt anyone or be hurt by anyone if I am not here?’ Yet I turn around and remember… Life like poker comes with loss. Just as when I get attached to a hand in poker I am sure to lose my stack as I am to loose my spirit if I get attached to things in life. I am no Bhudda beneath the Mahabodhi tree in his state of awareness and unattached splendour. Yet I feel his point and have lived many of his lessons even as I sometimes still get attached to my exploitable pair of aces and pay for someone else’s poker or get attached to the memories of lovers past and present and pay for it in tears. As you can see I will find any excuse to talk about poker and of course, more on that later.

There is a special someone in my life right now who loves me more than I can at times understand. I will always remember the night she grabbed me, it was her birthday and she said to me ‘I love you.’ This was at a time in my life where I could not love anything; let alone myself. That is until she grabbed me and spoke the words that heralded a new chapter in my life. How could this curiously sweet and glorious creature love me? What did she see in me? Why? I still have moments where I wonder – Thankfully those moments of darkness pass relatively fast of late and I attribute that to having her by my side. I am blessed to have a growing list of reasons to be alive and my apologies to everyone else, yet she sits at the top and looks like she is there to stay.

She fell in love with me during that time were I had no work. I had no prospects. I had nothing. I lived out in the less desirable suburbs, in a place riddled with crime, a place that was gritty and dirty. The whole time she was falling for me… She could see my spark which at the time I thought I had lost and lost for good. It was as if she could see that I had a purpose and took delight in reminding me; now, it has become apparent.

As spring kicks in and I leave my winter blues behind, a new chapter in my life has begun. I have a new job wherein I work with the kind of things I love to work with. I’m back in the audiovisual and staging industry and I feel great. Especially with her by my side and now it is simply her presence that reminds me that I have a purpose. That purpose is to love without attachment, as difficult as that can be. For all my talents realised and unrealised, for the things I could do, for all the things that I know, I always return to the principle of love without attachment. Love is not a bird in a cage. Love is a nest, from which the idea is to have the joy of flying free. There is purpose in flying free, it is what we were born to do. I want not for much from life. A comfortable place with her… maybe out in the wilds in a place that only my loved ones know how to get to. A sturdy desk, computer and comfortable chair to write strings of words, opera, and compose music at…. So many have told me that I have gifts and it is time I started using them to enrich lives. The airforce can wait while I sort my shit out, and maybe I am not made for that as my best friend was bold enough to suggest. He insists I should be making art, music, and theatre.

The rest of things I could want for and may or may not do, are most likely bullshit… Life is full of bullshit when we forget our purpose. When we forget our purpose we lose our will to live. Now it is time for me to live. Now it is time for me to love.Posted in Tales of River Styx, Never Go to War Alone Pt 2

Posted on

February 22, 2016  INSTALMENT TWO…Hungry in no man’s land…

N.B. The letter I am about to share with you guys is the real deal. My duty lawyer had actually handed this to the prosecution and Magistrate. If you manage to make it through reading this letter, without dying of laughter as a few have already, you may wonder why I did not use ‘my expensive mobile’ phone to call for help. It was because a dumbbell wielding lady occupant of the house, from which I had to abscond with the assistance of the police, had wrestled the phone charger out of my hands with her remaining other hand.

The charges I had to answer to were ‘Disorderly Conduct’ and ‘Possessing an illegally obtained item’…
That item was a shopping trolley…

The case was closed after a mere fifteen minutes. After the magistrate had read the letter she asked the prosecution what they had to say. The prosecutor stammered slightly and replied with, ‘No contest.’ I walked out of the court on a six month good behaviour type ‘Conditional Release Order’ with the convictions being declared ‘spent’ and thus to be thrown in the bin after the six months is up.

After the Magistrate uttered ‘mitigating circumstances’ a couple of times I was basically told to be a good lad and sent out the door exhaling a massive sigh of relief.

It is worth noting the day of the hearing was my 30th Birthday. After virtually packing my dacks with shit from nervousness I skipped and baltered to the train station from which I made the journey to a dear Kiwi friend’s house wherein she gave me cupcakes with pirate candles, delicious chicken rolls of some kind, and beer. We spent most of the day painting and colouring in silence amidst the giggles and capped off the celebration with a midnight swim in the ocean. It was my best birthday on memory and I would like to specially thank that gorgeous dental assistant for her having significantly eased the trauma of having to stand before a magistrate for fifteen minutes while my knees knocked nervously together.

Enjoy…

To the Magistrate,I, Arcan Dirth would like to sincerely apologise for my incredibly desperate albeit disorderly conduct on the ••/••/•••• at ••••••••• located at •• ••••••• Street, ••••••••.All of my worldly possessions were contained in the shopping trolley, including a large road case I was towing behind it. Earlier in the day I had pushed a different shopping trolley which I had found on the side of the road, full of Christmas gifts I had found and scavenged around the area, a couple of dozen kilometres to provide some Christmas support to a family that had been kind enough to accommodate me during my transition into my new temporary accommodation. The elder of the house was away and when I had returned bearing the gifts, my noisy, and clanking arrival with the trolley was not well received and a dispute arose. With the assistance of the police I had managed to unload this particular trolley and fill it with all of my worldly possessions and embarked on my intended journey to Wembley Downs via Fremantle – Wembley Downs being my newly available temporary accommodation at the time.My intention was to travel to the ••••• cafe, via bus, where I had once and briefly worked as a kitchen hand. I was owed a small sum of money and I was desperately hungry and tired. I had been payed a smaller portion of the owed wages an hour late the night before, resulting in a further 24hr wait to receive the sum of money. My hope was to utilise some of my owed money in exchange for a meal as I had done often before. I was also hoping one of the staff would be able to assist me with my journey to my new home as I did not have the strength to carry my cumbersome and valued load. I was exhausted, feeling unwell, desperate, and feeling very lonely.After getting off the bus and finding another trolley for my possessions, the aforementioned loneliness had turned very fast into anger when I realised that the restaurant where I had once briefly worked had closed its doors – Later I found out it was closed due to the power being cut off.I attempted to make the best out of a sorry situation and began to busk on the streets of Fremantle in aid of raising some money for transport. Unfortunately I was far too exhausted to make a decent go of the attempt and resigned myself to either using my expensive mobile phone as a surety, either at a pub for a meal or as collateral for a micro-loan at cash converters.The pub I chose, ••••• ••••• refused to take any of my possessions as a surety much to my dismay, which further fuelled my building rage, so I attempted to seek a small loan from Cash Converters and much to my disgust had learned that seeking a small loan on a Sunday was not allowed in Western Australia.I returned to ••••• ••••• and desperately pleaded my case to which I was given a flat refusal. Contrary to the material evidence, and to the best of my memory I was not actually asked to leave the premises and merely refused service. In desperation I laid down in the doorway exhausted and started playing my penny whistle at loud and annoying volume so as to attract some kind of attention and maybe summon the help of a Good Samaritan. Instead I had found myself summoning the police. By this stage I was so emotionally overwrought and terribly exhausted that I could not be reasoned with and made a disturbance of myself in the doorway by screaming obscenities and punching a wooden door.I am deeply ashamed I dealt with the situation in such a manner yet feel compelled to state that the desperation of the situation had pushed me over the limits of my ailing mental health. Not even days later I had found myself admitted to •••••••• Hospital suffering an acute manic episode due to the ordeal pushing me far beyond my limits. I spent 3 weeks hospitalised for the duration of my recovery.I now have stable accommodation and have applied to the defence force and a number of different jobs as well as enquiring about different avenues of study. I promise to do my best in the future to avoid such calamity and have subsequently learned there are better avenues with which to seek help. Once again I apologise to the community at large, ••••• •••••, the prosecution, and the magistrate for my unsavoury behaviour.Kindest Regards,
Arcan Dirth.

Authors Note:

To conclude that heartfelt albeit cheeky letter there are a few things I would like to add:
* I actually struggled against the coppers slapping the cuffs on me, yet I did so in a doorway which meant that technically I was in ‘no man’s land’ and therefore could not be done for ‘Resisting Arrest’ – Do not try this at home kids.
* I may have actually been a little cheeky to the coppers due to my hungry and delirious state of being. The copper that was doing all the talking was the size of a 500 year-old oak tree and had bull-rushed my crumpled and malnourished frame from out of the doorway. After the lummox landed on me I cried out in pain, ‘not the broken rib!’, with that the great meat axe body slammed me and there was a distinct popping sound. I took the blow with a violent exhale and silently breathed in deep. I looked up the the cheeky looking, smiling, pelican-shit-streak bar manager and grunted, ‘I am not hungry anymore!’ With that I broke free of the grasp of the behemoth copper and scrambled back to the doorway wherein I became like glue to the floor neither being inside nor outside of the doorway. As the monstrously strong bobby huffed and puffed to get my hands behind my back for the imminent and vicious cuffing I got really cheeky and struggled more whilst repetitively bellowing, ‘DID YOU GET YOUR JU JITSU TICKET OUT OF A WHEATIES BOX???’ Needless to say it made the brick shit house of a human huff and puff with greater intensity and when I finally yielded the fucker slammed the cuffs on extra tight.
* Whilst in the back of the divisional wagon I was unsure if the vehicle had stopped out the front of the cop-shop or the psychiatric facility…. Which I did end up in a couple of days later, yet I will save that yarn for another instalment. To be sure, I had twisted my handcuffed body into a rather compromising and unnatural form to peek out the tiny window in the side of the holding pen of the wagon. This was incredibly stupid as I had found myself in a situation akin to some kind of ridiculously difficult yoga position that would have meant a slight deviation from remaining perfectly still would have most likely resulted in broken wrists. The most amusing result of that situation meant that I had to be removed from the divvy van upside down and stiff as a board before the slippery grip meat axe and his rake handle offsider dropped me into the gutter outside of the wagon.
* Whilst in the holding cell at the cop-shop I put on such a confusing and rambunctious display of ranting, rambling, and raving, that even though I signed the finger printing and DNA collection form, the coppers forgot to collect either…. OOPS DICKHEADS… Double Jeopardy… You ain’t getting those fuckers now!!!
* After the ordeal the coppers were kind enough to drop me off at the emergency department in the divvy van with all my bags and bits and pieces so I could get my ribs X-ray’d. I later dragged all my shit a few kilometres down the road to a bank where I slept outside to kill the time waiting for my money to clear… Yet that is also a yarn for another instalment. I might add that the wheels on my massive road case had conveniently busted directly out the front of the bank. Talk about luck of the bloody Irish… To be sure… Twice…

With a little help from the kindness of your hearts I will be able to finance some new and exciting field trips to bring you all more action packed adventures. Currently it stands that virtually all of the things I do that inspire these tales do not come coupled with any significant income. So, with a little help I can afford things like bus tickets, Uber ride-shares, and food in the hope of getting arrested a little less often, as well as doing more of the kind things for random people that make getting out of bed so much more easier and fulfilling.PayPal donations can be made at:And bitcoins can be directed to:18pZXVL6zqUAUrSW2vTg4c8BQJSC2fEV6mThanking you kindly in advance.

 

Never Go to War Alone

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February 20, 2016

 

INSTALMENT ONE…The heart that can still break is the heart that stays young…

The last ten or so months have been a wild ride. I had started preparing for a pilgrimage from Victoria to the West of Australia nearly a year ago. Along the way I got caught up in what the Blackfullas call a ‘Whirly-Whirly’ of humanitarian and environmental activists. Before I knew it I had found myself hurtling across the Nullarbor aboard a Welsh digital media artist’s minibus. This was after her and a central Oz elder had stopped over randomly on their way through to Adelaide from Canberra for drinks a couple of doors down from my ratty old bumfuck nowhere house.

This last year, as much as I had innumerable things taken off me unfairly and usually with force, and as much as I got used to and desensitised to the pain of pulling invisible daggers out of my back from a wide variety of double-crossing insecure types… It was totally worth the trouble. People that know me well, know that I am trouble – One elder even said about me to a friend, ‘This guy is a whole spearhead of trouble’, and coupled with that cockeyed grin on his weathered, wise and cheerful face, it was damn near the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me.

I chose to live in a state of homelessness away from home; feeding myself and feeding my comrades out of bins; sleeping with blades under my bed and pillow; dodging the ever present threat of people unhinged by the never ending shitstain rainbow of tranks and methamphetamine that polluted the streets; witnessing vicious bashings and hearing the smash and tinkle of broken glass against faces in the night as I clutched the handle of my blade under my pillow; doing the mating dance with coppers on a regular basis; and lugging furniture I found in hard rubbish by the roadside up the hill on my head to furnish my humble and beloved little brickbox squat – N.B. There was no electricity in that little shed, I wrote some of my greatest work in that dim yet gorgeous little room by candle light, and loved in there the greatest lover I have ever known. Out of all the things I lost during that time, she was the only thing I was not prepared to loose… and she came from Russia, with love.

When I left for Western Australia I was in pretty bad shape. I was overweight with fluid retention and I was starting to bleed out the arse and my kidneys were starting to pack it in, both ailments were from the lithium that the Victorian public health system was forcing down my throat and policing/enforcing with monthly blood tests. One day out of the blue I got off the bus in front of the cemetery where Bon Scott’s bones lie hidden and started to retch and heave on the roadside… As I had staggered back to the squats delirious from the sudden impact of the creeping lithium toxicity, some junkie scum I had hardly payed a thought to during my violent heaving silently picked up my wallet I had dropped amidst my renal and gastric calamity and placed that wallet in his pocket. This happened as a young, strong, and beautiful Viking woman dragged me up to my feet for the two and a half kilometre journey back to my bedroll where I had prepared myself to die. That junkie without so much as thinking to kindly tap me on the shoulder made off with my wallet, my identity, my favourite trading cards, and what little pension money I had left to see me through the fortnight. It was at this point I had become the stranger in a strange town with no tangible paper identity… I had become Persona Non Grata and I was teetering by the skin of my teeth close to death. A dear Swedish lass, the Viking, whom I will forever regret having introduced to that squat circus and shall never regret having got to know, nursed me to my feet as I staggered back to my brick box to die. That week while I lay in the dark thinking as if my time was up I vowed never to take lithium again. I had realised I was living in a more progressive land where the doctors would listen and not force that crap down my throat. The legislation is better here and the patient actually has a voice… Laws to protect said voice, and alternatives to the stock poisons big Pharma is cramming down the necks of the uneducated and unwell.

Over the process of detoxing from the lithium I had stripped my weight down to skin and bone. I had to hit the reset button on my physical form. I had to start from scratch. That toxicity, whilst painful and frightful, was my first arm up out of the murky waters of the River Styx and out towards the exit of Hades itself.

I cannot deny that I have begun taking medication again, yet this regimen is not punishing my digestion and now my mind is mine again. I wake up in the morning now inspired and thanks to my new and dinkily little vaporiser my lungs are free of fudge.

Things came around full circle in the end. I have shocked myself by finding a home that has a door that locks and now my knives are no longer under my pillow and bed, yet are to be found in my kitchen drawer instead. I have also shocked a number of my friends by applying for the defence force. I want to be a medic. I want to patch up broken soldiers in no man’s land. I want to fly and jump out of flying vehicles. I want to sit in submarines. I want to look out at the ocean aboard big ships. The Aussie forces take on nuts on a case by case basis and I am going in red-hot if they deem me stable enough and worthy of a place within their ranks.

Since uprooting myself from being firmly placed in self appointed homeless limbo and recently dropping my bags into a new abode; since dropping my weary mind and fatigued body into a real bed in a room with a door that locks… I laugh and smile at the mirror, at the grey hairs that were not to be found on my head a year ago and the oxymoron that is a face that looks younger than it was 6 years back into the past.

I still miss that unlock-able brick box with its ratty old desk and rescued leather armchair strewn with dusty old books, mind-maps and melted candle-wax. Most of all I miss those random phone calls in the night from the gorgeous yet weary Russian whom would softly in her sweet mewling voice speak into my ear, ‘I’m hungry… Tell me a story…’
A soft and gentle tear would roll down my eye as I would look to the wing of the owl, my mother’s totem, hanging from my ceiling, the wing from the majestic bird that had chosen to fall dead from the sky into the Russian’s backyard like some ancient blessing from my mother’s mother’s mother’s… I would wipe the tear soft like an angel’s wing aside, take a deep breath and smile as the words, poetry and stanzas of some absurd and free flowing verse escaped my moving lips. I can still hear her smile. I can still hear her giggle. I cry as I write this, as I can still hear her gently sigh and fall asleep coupled with the soft click of the phone-line breaking.

My phone would fall like a feather from my hands to my side upon the salvaged bed as I myself would quietly sigh… As that Angel slept away in the distance, I lay there smiling, giggling and not sleeping a wink until the new morn’s sun would rise.

Posted in Tales of River Styx,  Arcan Dirth, From Russia with Love, Hell, 

 

 

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