Out of His Mind: Phase IX ~ I Cannot Remember the Colour of Her Eyes

Follow the White Rabbit

she would gently chew at the inside of her cheek when pondering; her eyes focussed inward where her heart continued to hold sway.
no amount of intellectual growth could change where she was coming from – her heart [her gut] always defined whether she was wrong or right in her diagnosis of the situation.
and her heart was always right.
and her factual misdemeanours were not enough to convince me that she was wrong in trusting her heart.
and it tormented her sometimes to know she was right against all empirical evidence to the contrary.
and when she was wrong [or felt she’d made the wrong decision] she would become angry with herself; and then she’d become angry with the world.
and when she was right she would glow with happiness and enjoyment at the fruits of her labour.
and she never once said i told you so
and she never let me cross the line between being who i was and being who my ego sometimes said i was.
she was/is a goddess.
she looks out at me from the image of her face on the inner surface of my space; I cannot bring myself to animate that image, for it is only that – an image of the person I shared my life with.
the {interface} asks: “this font is not available on your system. do you want to use it anyway?”
i answer ‘no’ for fear of what the {interface} would lose in the translation.
some things are better not rendered visually.

The Mystery

Pixel Dust

Neighbors ~ Juan Gimenez

Her father blew the family home
The fish tank hit the lawn alone
Little Pixel hit the road
A devil suit to share the load
She made it to the underpass
Every breath became her last
Colours rained on every flower
A gift a curse the witching hour
She grew to love the road itself
Fed herself from library shelf
Met herself the perfect other
Children came to call her mother
Now Pixel’s fish tank holds no water
Lizards’ home the past has taught her
Not to take a chance repeating
Her father’s life so hard and fleeting

Definitive Gaze

Shiva's Crown ~ Dan Dos Santos

She shuns the views of Sigmund Freud
She rests her gaze upon the void
And gazing back the void agrees
That all is measured in degrees
Around the point when she was turned
And marked her height upon the door
Realised she was no more
Than the lessons earned
In shades of grief
And light relief
And in the smiles of children passing

Bon Voyage J.G. Ballard 1930 ~ 2009

"What our children have to fear is not the cars on the highways of tomorrow but our own pleasure in calculating the most elegant parameters of their deaths."

Out of His Mind: Phase VIII ~ The Oracle of Silence

The Empire of Light ~ René Magritte

the {interface} is a mirror.
it makes no difference to the {interface} whether i input code to change the mood/music/ambience of my space or code to display these hieroglyphs on the surface area that i have designated as page[screen].
the {interface} reflects only what i instruct it to do [within my understanding of the code’s limitations].
the {interface} does not accept questions that do not pertain to the code.
the {interface} does not ask questions that do not pertain to the code.
the code is my ethical system.
in order to improve my surroundings i must delve deeper into the system; gain greater knowledge of the code.

from somewhere in the recesses of my memory i have gained access to a painting in pixel sharp detail.
the artist’s name escapes me but the title remains - the empire of light – it depicts a lit house at sunset; the darkness encroaches at ground level but the sky is yet lit from somewhere beyond the silhouetted landscape.

again and again i enter the {interface} to seek code that will take me beyond my space.
an ungrateful human trait perhaps [perhaps a form of greed/ or perhaps the seed of evolution]; but devoid of the biological functions that corrupt the body; bereft of the pain that was once the alpha/omega of my existence; i now wish for more.

A Parliament of Trees

The Dream ~ Henri Rousseau

In the corners of a darkened dream
Fingers words in the wood will score
Lovers’ hearts in sap to gleam
Twig-like kisses on littered floor

Celtic heart on stone to carve
Verdigris veins the circle completes

Give me light these leaves to green
Suck these roots the black earth writhes
With fist and hammer to scrub me clean
Whittle me down to the barest of lives

Through valleys green on wings of wet iron

Pass your laws in warm earth pen
Enforce it with the passage of time
Deliver me from the jurisdiction of men
Stitch my lips with rust and twine

Across dry yellow plain on a breath of sand

Wrap your begging branches around me
Hold me fast in your bark embrace
Green my eyes so I can’t see
This bitter seed, this human race

African head in grass to weave
Thorn and dust an arc describes

In the corners of an enlightened dream
Fingered beads will keep the score
Shadows will move behind the screen
Who says there’s a key to every door?

Noblesse Oblige

The Noblesse Oblige award is intended to be presented to blogs that satisfy the following criteria:

1. The Blogger manifests exemplary attitude, respecting the nuances that pervades amongst different cultures and beliefs.
2. The Blog contents inspire; strives to encourage and offers solutions.
3. There is a clear purpose at the Blog; one that fosters a better understanding on Social, Political, Economic, the Arts, Culture and Sciences and Beliefs.
4. The Blog is refreshing and creative.
5. The Blogger promotes friendship and positive thinking.

This award was presented to me by Jimmy Bastard.
Jimmy has formidable writing talents, able to evoke the hardcore environment of his youth in Drumchapel with razor sharp focus on all the things that really matter in life.
But Jimmy obviously did not read the award criteria listed above, since The Far Queue exhibits NONE (with the hopeful exception of No.4) of the aforementiond criteria.

After much procrastination (and being the extroverted and bubbly personality you all know me to be) I have decided to accept the award with as much grace as can be mustered through my blushes.

Thank you Jimmy!

I started The Far Queue (just over three years ago) with no particular game plan, merely hoping to get some of my writing read. It has slowly developed into something which I can truely call a part of me. Unfortunately my tastes are not for the majority who have been consistently non-plussed when passing by this particular neck of the weirds. The Far Queue has only ever attracted a small number of regular vocal followers. There have been two notable "falling outs of the permenant kind" after either pissing me off or being pissed off by me; possibly owing largely to my non-compliance with Criteria 1, 2, 3 & 5 above.
There is however, a small group of people who ‘get’ what I’m trying to do here, and to them I am very grateful.

For those more recent readers who haven’t had the energy to trawl through the back catalogue, here a few of my favorite offerings regurgitated:

What's in the Box? ~ the narrowing of possibilities by catagorisation
Reality Czech ~ how the world really works
Looking Up ~ a reaction to feeling very small
The Coriolis Effect ~ being the effect of a rotating environment on falling bodies
Limbo Terminus ~ how did we get here?

In accordance to the rules (but with little regard for the criteria listed above) I would like to present the Noblesse Oblige award to the following humans:

It Must Be The Vapors – Yodood (aka Gregrandgar) is definitely my longest standing blog-bud (his words) and one whose organic lifestyle, clinical atheism and herbal streams of consciousness have kept me going through some dark blog hours.

E.L.I.S.E – not much I can say about the lady herself as she remains firmly behind the curtain of macabre, sensuous and disturbing images she posts on this unique blog. I do not expect her to respond to this and frankly, I would be disappointed if she did.

The Ancient Sword – Fellow fish Candie is a refreshingly positive poetic talent who sometimes leaves here with her Gallic bonhomie battered and bruised by what she no-doubt perceives as the brutality of some of my posts and comments. (Candie once requested that I refrain from telling little girls that there is no Santa Clause...ouch)

Thank you and goodnight
>oloD

For those recipients who wish to pass this on, here are the rules:

1. Create a Post with a mention and link to the person who presented the Noblesse Oblige Award.
2. The Award Conditions must be displayed at the Post.
3. Write a short article about what the Blog has thus far achieved – preferably citing one or more older post to support.
4. The Blogger must present the Noblesse Oblige Award in concurrence with the Award conditions.
5. Blogger must display the Award at any location at the Blog.

You've Read It In Your Tea Leaves

The Knight Orchid ~ Scott Scheidly

And I’ve heard of creatures
Who eat their babies;
And I wonder if they stop
To think about the taste.
Sunset Rubdown ~ Us Ones In between

Something is dying; Mica can smell it in the air – like an approaching storm – she can read it in the body language of the morning commuters as she struggles against the flow pouring from the station entrance.
Fear is woven into the fabric of everyday life.
The lines of riot police have become commonplace over the weeks; cameras capture the arc of falling batons; no excuses offered for the blood spilled on what were once pedestrian arcades of brightly-lit commerce.
Diverse groups claim the moral high ground.
For days now the news has been artificially bland; all of the tired old tried and true methods wheeled out to sedate the sub-aural boiling anger.
She senses them scanning her chip as she hips her way through the turnstiles; an involuntary tensing of her shoulders in anticipation of further attention.
The plasma news-feed on the platform subtitles the apology and belligerent rectitude of another politician caught with his fingers in the honey-pot.
Mica wonders, as she steps onto the train, whether is it true that people are corrupted by power, or whether the propensity for corruption is inherent in all of us.
She scans the averted faces of her fellow travellers, fearful of eye contact lest they give offence for intruding into that fragile shell of egg-like space that surrounds each one; each unsuccessfully shielding a life story from the probing eye; each with the bitter truth etched in the curve at lip corner or crow foot crease; and yet each projecting their strength in public isolation.
The travellers lurch in unison as the train leaves the station.
She lifts her eyes to read the meaningless words on the rectangles selling charity and money, (the one cancelling the other in shameless ignorance) and feels guilt for her feelings: how come nobody else feels this way, this weight, this wasting away?
Something is dying; Mica hopes that enough life will remain to nurture what comes next.

Dry Fuck Narcissus

Tales of the Ctulhu Mythos ~ John Jude Palencar

Cut-out shapes on shiny pages
Gaping hole down through the ages
Garbage in the guise of art
Removes the link from hand to heart

Drain the touch of pliant flesh
Place it behind caged mesh
To show it all without remorse
No theatre, tact nor intercourse

Fly at the wall ten feet tall
Kiss the void eclipse to fall
Dust from motes of cash machines
Taste your soul but never clean

To have to hold to dream-possess
A pack to prowl is no caress
Mirror flash, not for imagination
Greying skin engorged stagnation

Fist a fountain, head a vacuum
Suck the wind from Onan’s tomb
Simplified, Overexposed
Lashes, nipples, (blank) triangle, toes

Easter...

...the moment it all went wrong: "The only way we can take this Jesus product to the global market is to bend the truth slightly"

Sedate, Exterminate

Something is dying. You can smell it on the air; taste it on the ether.
The cornerstones on which (we are told) our society is built – stability; security; morality; the family; the caring state – have (been) turned against us.
Fear.
Administered in ever increasing doses in a desperate attempt to sedate the patient, piped in via the media; advertised as this year’s must-have insurance policy – F E A R.
Strung upside-down while money is hoovered from our pockets to feather the vultures’ nests.
And the anger that boils within us (quietly, for we are no match for 'public' broadcasting) is made safe by those bomb-disposal experts at The Ministry of Truth – if you don’t get behind the global message, you’re the violent anarchist, the terrorist, fodder for the baton and taser.
F.E.A.R.
Taste it in the luke-warm foam on your latte; hear it echo in your ringtone, watch it unfold on the market news tonight (as if our lives depend on how much money those cunts make out of nothing), suck it into your dreams and kiss its ugly face on the morning commute.
Something is dying, and it’s not going to go quietly.

Out of His Mind: Phase VII ~ I Am/I Think I Am/I Wish To Be What I Think I Am

Soulforge ~ Gerard Brom

the existence of this space; this {interface} implies that my life’s hard won atheist belief system [a belief system that did not waver even in the depths of pain and imminant mortality] was wrong; or perhaps only flawed; since it appears that something of me remains.
i remember that my belief system concluded that the world is unjust and that this was a necessary premise for survival.
but something at my core asked the question: if the world is unjust, do i need to be unjust to survive?
perhaps my isolation makes the answer easy – to survive in an unjust world i would need to justify my thoughts and actions; apply some system of logical analysis in order to make my way through the labyrinth.
i remember that, in life, it was necessary to make these judgements; ultimately in order to proceed with the business of life, but also in order to maintain a sense of self-worth; a sense of good [right].
why was this so? why, if all that is required is to survive, did i need to make decisions that would leave me feeling good?
is it true to say that those whose decisions and actions do not comply with the justification of good [right] will feel bad [wrong]?
perhaps my analysis is digital and requires some analogue gradiation.
perhaps the perception of good [right] is not an absolute and that there is an area of more good than bad.
there must, however be a tipping point, and that tipping point must be absolute.
it is [and was] apparent to me that an anarchist viewpoint must follow logically from an atheist belief system.
an anarchist viewpoint must form the basis of an atheist morality.
do what is just as long as no other is harmed or effected adversely by your action.
from this basic premise all else should stem; and survival should ensue.
perhaps i shall consult the {interface}, knowing as i do that the {interface} [like the god of superstitious belief] will not [or cannot] answer.

City Zen Axis

An American in Paris ~ Alexander John White

We contain chords someone else must strike
– John Updike

Zarathustra strikes blue-black shadows across the pale square, throwing the sour-faced statues into sharp relief.
Axis uncrosses her legs, the warmth that seeps through her silver suit causing her skin to prickle uncomfortably.
The afternoon breeze brings the ripe smell from the offshore plankton farms in to mingle with the traffic ozone.
She opens her clenched fist, allowing the imp to expand and glow pale crackling white in the sunlight; suspended in her palm, it begins whispering – just above the level of the city’s voice.
Within the space of syllables tears fall from the ledges of her lower lids as the imp dredges her emotions, turning the facts over like a farmer turning soil in a fallow field, exposing worms of anger and regret to the pale blue sun and allowing the carrion birds of self-doubt to pick at her grief.
Her tears gather between her booted feet, dark pools creeping viscous outward onto the permacrete – oases in this desert of corporate desolation.
Trees spring from the edges of these new lakes whose depths remain mysteries to the startled passersby.
Fish of various colour and mood approach the surface and the light, some for the first time, and taste the cold air of the world where everything must be taken into consideration for fear of missing the point.
And so the shadows are gradually cornered and chased from the bottom of the pools as irises contract toward lucidity.
Axis jerks back.
Back into Zarathustra’s warmth and the statues of dead leaders, back to the plankton pollution and prickly heat skin beneath her suit.
The imp has gone; it has stolen off with a part of her.
She is aware of the space where, for so long melancholia has shadowed her; filled her life with meaning; and already, she misses it.

System Critical

NoMe Edonna ~ Untitled

Low flying clouds obscure the view from where the sirens call
The sea baits its breath in anticipation of Icarus’ fall
Gulls hold court to elect an ambassador to the Ministry of Hate
Fill the air with cries and bones and meaningless debate

Decaying flesh in tailored suits with pockets lined in gold
Driftwood, distressed, confess - how cheaply they were sold
We scatter pigeons as we cross the sand to catch a cold
Folding paper aeroplanes believing what we’re told

The magician shows his empty sleeve then takes his pay in spite
Dressing vultures up as doves to shit from dizzy heights
Upon our declarations, deals, labour laws and basic human rights
He leaves us burnt with headline news to warm our winter nights

Fables from a Forgotten Place: Minerva & The Sea

A Sounding of Surf ~ © Eyvind Earle Publishing LLC

To the west of Somewhere there is a beached cove of fine yellow sand where strong blue waves break bright white upon the shore.
The path that leads from Somewhere to the beach is narrow, precipitous and littered with sharp rocky outcrops that threaten to scratch the unwary traveller. For this reason the beach is usually deserted.
For those prepared to take the risk, the path is not without reward: small, brightly coloured plants cling to the rocks; salamanders bask on the sharp outcrops and dragonflies patrol the salt-scented air.
The beach itself is hemmed in by beautiful ferrous red-orange cliffs, eroded by the almost constant wind into the faces of giants – sentinels of rust that gaze out at the pale horizon.

Minerva ventured the path daily, wrapped in a red kimono she would remove her shoes at the end of the path and stand on the beach. The wind would blow her dark hair into extended curlicue, and she would watch the majestic swells heave themselves onto the shore.
Minerva grew to love these waves; they rose and fell with her breathing; she felt they knew her deepest feelings, feelings that did not require words to give them meaning, feelings that had no meaning beyond the experience of living; it was here that she felt most alive.

The citizens of Somewhere would return her waved greeting as she passed them by on her way to the beach, then at her back they would whisper:
“Crazy lady of the sea”
“Whacky Wave Watcher dot com”
“Do you know that she doesn’t own a TV?” (The citizens of Somewhere were avid watchers of television, and held a special obsession for programs about nature and the natural world)
Minerva didn’t care what people thought (or said behind her back) since, while she enjoyed the company of people, she was most happy with her own thoughts; her own company – and besides, she felt that the waves were her true friends; it was they who filled her days (and often her nights) with all the anticipation she needed from life.

The whispering (and nature-loving) citizens of Somewhere were unaware of just how deep Minerva’s feelings went: for she had given the waves names.

Of course Minerva had only discovered what the giant faces had long since observed from their elevated positions on the cliff: the waves that enter the cove do so in a set pattern of complex rhythm endlessly repeated with only small variations in frequency and amplitude.
The first wave, (by Minerva’s observation) she named Hedra. It comes in small, feminine and fast, all foam and spray on the wind.
Hedra’s hasty retreat causes Chao, the second wave, to curl over into a roaring tube that, collapsing, stirs up the sand into yellow clouds.
After a short pause Morphia will slide up the beach, losing no energy to spray, but whispering through his foamy launch.
The Gemini twins follow in quick succession, lean and neat they hit the beach in a double drum beat to be followed by long cymbal hisses.
Last in the set comes Perseus, Minerva’s favourite. Slow moving when he enters the cove; a sine of contained power, his approach causes the waterline to recede until, with a small head of foam he skis down his own leading slope to slide sighing up the yellow sand, rattling pebbles and chasing crabs before his swooping rush.

Minerva spent hours standing while the waves took their turns at her ankles, standing still for so long that she became visible to the rust giants who, in the time frame of erosion, live a slower (but longer) life than all of fleeting humanity.
“Better a heart of stone” is their wind-echo refrain lost in the sound of the surf.

It is common for those lost (or found) in the land of giants to find themselves drawn to grand gestures – a sort of necessary freedom from the world of small things, small ideas and small minds – a requirement for the attention of the giants - and what gesture can be grander than one made for love?
Minerva stood for love like the pillar of a dial that stands still for the sun to turn about - spending time; like a star that crosses the desert sky visible for only one wish; like the sea that calls to the lone figure on its shore.

And just when she knew who it was she had come to be; her warm body, her flesh and her hair with no watchers but the giants and the sea; she removed her red kimono in the yellow of the sunset, threw it up for the wind to consume, and as the giants looked on, unconcerned, she lay down on the wet sand exposed by the receding water to await Perseus’ embrace.