A Visit From Hana

Drove out to the country, the west side of the county. A confused weather day. Overcast but warm. We were gonna pick up Hana, Amber's cousin, at the house of their shared aunt. I had had ideas for other plans that evening, but I forgot about the visit from Hana. The kids are at their dad's for the weekend. We arrive in Espanola at the old boxy square country house with mentafacts and other articles about the door and side that would speak of America in a gone day. The house was probably nearly the same 10, 20, 50 years ago.

When we got out of the car I could hear rattling near the front door that spooked me in the darkness, but Amber was going around to the side. She knew the place like it was her home. She grew up next door where her parents still live. I was feeling like I was dreaming. Hana yelled from inside to come in when we knocked. The house was dark. So is Hana. Wooden, varnished wood, low lights, adjusting pupils and shapes in the dark. We found Hana in the better lit front room. She was messing with the locks on the front door. At first I thought she was still trying to get out, but she was locking up. The Aunt was in town.

This place is like a fort, she said as all shared greetings. I sat on the brown tweedy couch.

I thought that was the point of living in the country and having guns, so you didn't have to lock everything up, I snickered.

Oh there are guns everywhere, she said casually. I got a couple goosebumps and had an urge to look beneath the couch. I detoured this thought with picking up a book from the shelf, "Encyclopedia of 1977." It looked worn by time and browning, but never opened. I thumbed through as Amber and Hana launched into conversations on subjects between themselves. Stories and such mid-book that I could by no means catch up on as these two had grown up together. This was their theater. I was an extra with a cameo.

Hana returned attention to me for a moment and began a mini tour of the house, her old room, pictures of such and such, black and whites, Amber adding some details. Laughs and heads shaking adding to my disorientations. We were gonna pick up Hana and maybe do something together tonight - why are we still here?

Hana has a pale classic face. A '30s film star even. Dark eyes and dark hair of mixed dyes and various cosmetic experiments that came together. Big fake diamonds in her ears that fit, bright serious lipstick that might make you pucker in your sleep if dreamed of, and tattoos about her body peeking out here and there. I tried to place the shapes and letters without staring. Hana is a fruit that fell far from the tree. Figuratively and literally, She's visiting from Oregon, somewhere near Portland. She lives there now with her husband, an artist. Where Amber's part bohemian, Hana's part punk...but in a matured way somehow.

Aunt Ceil's got a thing for animated inanimate objects, Hana explained as I stared into the face of a plastic sewing kit/tool complete with moving eyes and mouth and made to look like it was part of a log and would open as a circle split thru the circumference. I followed them into the other room as the three of us had made a complete circle thru the house and were in the darkest part of the house again. Hana turned with a monkey puppet that began singing and I nearly screamed. I think she laughed or smiled, I think maybe they saw my freaked out face, I think it was a monkey, I can't be sure, it was dark.

I tried a rocking chair as they talked and saw "1873" on the stove pipe furnace in the living room. There were a string of lights colored white that could have been used for Christmas by a mirror in the center. The only light in the room. Now they were ready to go, just as I was nearly comfortable. I was ready for a seance.

C'mon, said Amber.

Shhh, just a second I said, listen.

There was nothing. No sound. None. I got up and left the chair. Maybe I would have a gun or two if I lived out there myself. Certainly the locks. I followed back out the side door where we came in and before we went down the platform,

Look! I said to the girls, the rocking chair is rocking itself!


We drove into town. I talk with Hana. But mostly she talks to Amber, and they whisper a lot. Girl stuff I know. Amber knows me well enough to baby me a bit though. She'll take little breaks from the chatter to rub my arm or pat my back, maybe a peck on the cheek. She spoils me with attention, I know this, but it's all a little unusual for our weekend without the kids. I sat in the back to be polite so they could talk. I think Hana thought that was weird. I think she likes tough guys. I've got that English respect for women that some American girls can't understand.

I said chatter before didn't I? That's the wrong word. That suggests something loose and reckless. Hana's not reckless. She's controlled. She's demure but still striking in appearance, aloof but sharp, and seems sophisticated in a low key way. She's lived in the woods, she's lived in the city. She seems to know more about me than I do. She replys to my statements as if to start arguments, but keeps communications. As if what she adds to anything is the last word, but doesn't need to make a point of it being so, it just is. She seems to read my mind. She seems to know of some weakness within me which I have not discovered. I feel childish around her sometimes, and she's younger than me. I need to travel more some day. But now I'm settling down.

She's the same age as Amber. She and I are on the same plane, we're getting along gloriously, for 7 months strait now. This maybe makes here old girlfriend suspicious? These two know each other inside and out, they've seen each other's boyfriends come and go. Is Hana on to something? Does she see something in the cards? Something Amber even is too in love to detect?

Shit, now I'm writing Soap Opera. That's not what I intended, I intended nothing though. I wanted to write about the last 12 hours for some reason and it came down to this. Well, Hana's still in town so maybe this is part one. The two of them went to the gym. I'm here alone now. We're supposed to go "out on the town" tonight. Just shoot some pool really. Last night we watched a movie together, well Amber fell asleep before the mid point. Too much Shiraz. It was only Hana and I at one point. At the end, when she spoke of the movie, it was as if it was the only and final review. We went to bed.

b

Some Further Blasphemy

Now acid, acid's another story. All should make the setting for it and do that once a year. And only once a year. Naked on a private island in a perfect world. Some water and some fruit, maybe a friend with the same objectives. Then think about what we learned for a year. Been a while for me. We'll see what's in Daytona tonight.

b

Religion is Blasphemy

I wish to manifesto! Manifestos are always: only of the ego
what more do you want?
you're not ever there
I tempt and try you.

I jump in the ocean

In my wetsuit I feel like a superhero
on occasion I stroll past folks bundled up and like
from Quebec and Miami alike
jump in the ocean and paddle out
i feel like a superhero eye tell ya

Jesus, what the fuck with religion?
I wrote a poem once
"Church of Mine"
it's about the ocean
'f I was muslim I could fatwah myself
see those buggers are as quick to X each other off as they are anyone else
but that's religion
all religions
Xing someone off = religion

Religion itself is the very thing that makes a GOD person in nature an atheist
those who are religious in their faith
I find,
are blasphemous, unfaithful, and far, if not furthest from "god"

judgment itself entering the human mind is the apple
the original sin
don't let fruedmeister tell ya it's sex
sex is just another distraction
mediocre
the cruxzt of the mechanical human looking for soul
none the better
or to be found
the lothario blues

or self realisation for jung
i read a lot of his stuff and others
a great bus system in Gainesville Florida
frat boys and sorostitutes alike on the bus
the bus was uncool at one time
but try to park your car around that town,
mid semester
for me you can get a lot of reading done on the bus,
and I did

think about it mr. average american
what if you did a little reading while on the road
not reading on the road while on the road
but being able to read while riding
it works out great
but what would you read?

riding the bus is american blasphemy more than the truth that -
Jesus was a human
human
human
human
(if he was more than human - then what's the big deal in getting crucified right? should be the fact that was human and came back that was important, and how the christmeister lived that we study - if christ was God - then big deal - it was all a show a god commiting suicide is like looking for dirt in the mud)
human -
just like you and me
capitalistic, patriarcal?
gotta have someone above you delivering the vice and it's solution eh?
so be it

you could be free

NO MATTER WHERE YOU LIVE

even america

but you're not, american but not
you're fixated on Idol and Plastic
you're stuck in Today Show Mud with your SUV
You're good mourning america ate your fox in the hunt
But FOX is blasphemy to the original american mind
the enlightened french ones you intend to abandon perpetually for french fries french toast and reefer, all fake

yeah,
that's right Mr. Steve Kilbey,
reefer is apple pie
you think it's the way of bohos
the advent aversion to the straits?
guess what -
it's the fave of meat eaters
and Garth Brooks lovers
ok to smoke pot?
sure I'de say, IMO
do what thy whilzt

but face it
'ts no silver bullet
the worst most negative people I ever met were potheads
not because they were high
but because they were so high so much they didn't know it anymore, and couldn't get a fix even while stoned. This is blasphemy, this is reefer as religion, it's pointing out the finger that points out the moon. Look in the mirror.

people always think i'm stoned though
so easy for me to say i guess,
"don't smoke pot"
already there
perma-stoned from a guy who was never a stoner
really wanna rebel these days?
rebel against the rebels
dime a dozen

I'm next. Eat me, or take a bite.

b

Out Of Our Mind

somedays feel pure insane
dreamed today, not tonight that I drank rum in scotland
dreamed that I was in the new place playing golf with the new kids
i hope you're of the patience you pretend
art is a victim of the backburner

noises in my head and faces on my tounge
nearly sara's birthday
wanted the ocean but as fake as a chicken
i was dry
got wet but not naked with two bikinis a couple days ago
made us all look like girls
not just for the coldness
but for the shrapizalitization

a rum away
thought i would be a rock star
thought i'de be on charlie rose by now
blame it on the commercial world but hell
coulda done it if i really had it in me
i hear the prettiest songs in the shower, at times
but i left that town behind

eye wehndt ouht ovv mye mahind 2-day
beachside dusk at dawn overcast
no good sleep in months
could blame it on the kids but it is what has always been the case
kids just give me the excuse good to be be up at that hour
i should join a bike gang
but i hate fuckin' harleys
devil inside
fidah just been grown up all somewhere'z else
woulda been just fine
but the white eagle lounge has nothing for me now

blue sky now
it is
but i can't see it
when you feel like this it's cold in summer
dark at noon
neon with grey
civil with criminal
destruction on the hammock strip
satan is a real estate agent
fuck em all
ive had it
i watched em tear all those ancient plants from it's ever lovin earth and blamed it on all but me
shoulda stood there and died with em

but i wait
i wait to lay here and die
upbeat and inspirational
silver lining aftermath
shot in the main line old girl friend pocket
manhattan burns
burn my balls

fifty yard line
punt for the goal
kick the bucket while you wash my car
burn
burn
burn it
burn it like you're hated flag

seems kilbey copied my style
can't believe it
tried to ignore it
tried to move on to dot my organs
tried but failed
sad today
facing some facts
facing spilled wine futility
mccarthyizmz
twinz in the womb
nowhere else
in all but the womb, twins
will die withought knowing eye

ohos ruhos?

wandered around atlanta on dark forbidden streets did you?
talked to animals and lost loved ones did you?
noticed the breath of the ocean did you?
heard the voice of everything and chose the voice of nothing did you?
froze just off stage?
but melted in the lights?
watched as the canary died?
predicted 9-11?
no, no anon emon
just nu-b
old bee
birds do it
machines do it

eye eye capitan rivers
an' there's mountains where that came from

b

Splitting Crosshairs

What do you hate? What's got you're goat?

Hate the government? Governments have been corrupt since the first ancient governments. The law of Hammurabi was made to be broken you might say. Hate for government is a waste of energy. It won't change. Hate Republicans? Hate Democrats? There's no difference and your alligience is as deep as a sports fan.

Hate Religion? Hate certain religions? Hate the wars that religion and government have created together or against each other? Religion is as old as man; destruction from traditions is ancient and never ending. Look up Joseph Campbell as an expert on our habit of mythology from one culture to the next, separate but same. Look up Pol Pot the Cambodian dictator of the Khmer Rouge who killed 2 million people in 4 years. Pol Pot was Buddhist, and did so in the name of. The Baghavad Gita is an Indian holy book that describes Krishna, a god talking Arjuna, a mortal incarnate as soldier into going to war and killing, when he doesn't want to. When a Samurai wants to test a new sword, he can try it on the next person he sees, and they are supposed to consider their own death as such an honor. You can't just blame the west and Christianity. Asia begins with Israel and goes east, a neat tid-bit that I recently noticed for myself.

So, you hate meat, but you love sugar? More for the use of sugar than for meat has been done to kill and enslave humans over time. Read "Sugar Blues." We (The English to be specific) began enslaving blacks from Africa within 100 years of "discovering the new land," to support our sugar tooth habits reaping cane in the Caribbean because our tender skins and lazy bodies couldn't take the heat.

Hate blacks? You hate blacks because you are descendants of those who bought the propaganda from those who intended to use blacks as slaves to complete their opulence while working in tandem with the church. Propaganda to support the notion that blacks were less than human - A NEW IDEA AT THE TIME. A notion that is only a couple hundred years old today. Blacks from North Africa were invited into many European nations and stood side-by-side whites as equals. So thank the sugar popes first, then your recent ancestors for buying the lie. After the civil war people who actually believed creation used evolution to support their ideas that whites were superior.

Hate whites? It was the African tribe leaders who first sold the first slaves to whites. True, eventually the ships came into the bay and went ashore in huge slave round-ups, but it began with the first internal transactions. More whites died in the Civil War fighting, in part, to abolish slavery than there ever were slaves in the first place. This doesn't justify, but it's a fact worth recognizing.

Hate the guy who cut you off in traffic? Or he who tailgates? Like you've never done that?

Hate petroleum and cars? Well now you know about sugar too if you didn't already. Sugar dealers were at one point putting heroin dealers out of business at one point according to Sugar Blues. But now per President Bush the tree-hugger that he is - Americans are now addicted to petroleum. I thought that was common sense. What is common sense?

Hate people who don't have common sense? I hear this all the time. It's a popular redneck thing to say, "Them people don't have no common sense." What is common sense? The watered down mean-of-means pop-world media conglomerate mediocrity on TV that we take on as our way of living? Mourning the death of a racecar driver years after his death? Eating meat, supporting the death penalty and calling yourself pro-life? Saying "God Loves You with a bumper sticker but then saying, "god hates fags" with your mouth?

Hate fags? The Greco-roman western culture that is the basis for your democracy and theories of freedom science and religion was built up and run on the leadership of those you might call fags. It was the norm to take another male as your sexual release and preserve virgins for marriage. Now neither is the norm. I'm not suggesting better over worse, just void reasons to hate people. The same corporations that call themselves conservative and family friendly are the same ones making the most money of the porn industry. Pay-per-view in your hotel room? Do you have any idea who got their cut? Who cares, as long as you don't watch gay porn right?

Who do you hate? You hate something. Hate is in you and you redirect it to something outside yourself. We all feel justified in hating something. It's like assuming that hating the right thing is ok, as if we're justified within our choice. Hate is always the same, the same creature, as if a chemical in our brains. It doesn't matter what you hate, hate itself is the only thing to hate.

Who do I hate? Am I hateless person to have such thoughts? What do I love to loathe? I can guess these are questions that someone might ask if someone reads this someday. I'm sure it's clear that leftover hateful liquid seeps from the seams in what I assembled for your consideration. Perhaps you can see though that I'm in a battle with these feelings. A dark rancid anger, so I am human. But a human can be more than this. Know it. Simply: All that is not to hate is to love, everything. I can think this, but I want to believe it to my core. It will take practice.

I'll admit that I have a tendency to hate rich people most. They seem to be miserable but oblivious to the fact, while looking down their nose at the rest of us. I hate Palm Coast. It's full of miserable rich people, it always has been. They are retired, or milking the retired, entitled to anything, but still so high strung and dissatisfied with everything. I don't want to be this way when I reach retirement age. I hope that when I'm 65, lord willing, that I will look forward still, but when I do look back I will see a life that was spent in the beautiful Florida landscapes and oceanside. I will see that I had a beautiful family and beautiful friends, that I appreciated them, and that I was able to show them this appreciation. I want to be able to look back and see that I was able to see hate for what it is, pure hate, no matter what is hated, and was able to rid my mind and body of it.

(as a note - I was asked by my girlfriend, who read this post - "interesting, but what are your sources for all that? - The book - Sugar Blues, Years of watching PBS Ken Burns documentaries in particular, and listening to NPR shows.)

b

Rope Trick

Took a closer look. Had a treehouse with no windows but for one door that took me to a limb near the clouds. Nobody I knew ever knew about my treehouse. I went back there for years. My secret spot. Out on a limb, alone. Perfect. Whenever I got near it, I would stop by. Up in the tree, just me. My place, my world.

Not long ago I introduced myself and invited up some strangers to share it. Some were silent, some were sullen, some were great company. A lava lamp party in a house in the sky with no electricity just dharma, and karma. Dharma is for killing karma. Bad Karma is bad, but all karma is worse. Get past the whole thing see? The system.

So we talked and chatted, got stuck in the tree, couldn't find the door, can't find sleep. Been here for years now, me and these trucky cats. The ladder truck's in the shop. The corn fields are put down for strip malls. Now our choices are endless. Take a closer look. We've unfolded the last of our origami collections and find all the flat pieces fitting together in the shape of a picture that sometimes repels.

Went to climb down. Ladder's gone. They gave my position at work to somebody new by now anyway I'm sure, so here I'll stay too comfortable to jump. To jump from my little world, my place. Crowded, but I can close my eyes. Then eye opened one I to the morning sky one night to find dark growling clouds about my limbs. Held flowers in my hand at tuck-in but now they are destroyed, petals everywhere, about my bed. The ladybugs are dead. When you break up with friends, do you snap it off, or let them down easy? Always surprised anyone cares either way, didn't till rejected anyway, why now?

So sensitive and quick to chase the sensitive. Senses, now that's Maya! Lila and Maya are supposed to be two different things. Tapping a shoulder from your backside. You turn and they say, "No, Over here!" Listening inside, free of senses, would have known the minute they came in the room. Caught their finger with yours on the first tap. But now you're tapped. Ran down to the end of the drag track and back pretending it's a lap, but it's no circle it's just the same old linear chute release, over and over. "But the speed! The rush! Have you forgotten!?"

No, not forgotten, I remember it all, that's the problem. Could fall asleep on a rollercoaster if I rode it all day, but now I'm waking amongst sleeping would be friends in this treehouse near unwanted dark clouds, and the sun (or the earth rather) has just made it to the point where long light has cast across my qwertyuiop keyboard fingers. Feel don't think. Think don't feel. The better pirates can wait till port and don't need a cabin boy. The best of em' just read in the cabin at the marina, and leave behind anyone who sleeps ashore at the time we cast off. Dockmaster once told me - "There are boat drivers and there are captains, once you know what you're doing you can see 'em comin' from way up the river, you'll know which is which. You'll have you're ropes ready."

I've threatened to jump ship from the treehouse. I should do it while they are all asleep. That way there will be no suspicion into my genuine intentions which are to escape, escape rather than to be seen as acting out a request for attendance. If only I could throw myself a rope. Once apon a time one came down out of the sky. I took hold and forgot my trip to the store, got high and spent my money at the top, thought I knew it all at that point, but didn't know a thing. When I came back to the treehouse of my skull the smoke cleared, and I could see that the only lesson I learned is that the previous lesson had nothing to teach. Now I'm looking at the ground. It gets dizzy. I get dizzy. The distance to me keeps changing. I scoot to the edge, nice and quiet, the sweaty inside of my hands hold the doorway, the tree is gone, only house. They are gone. I took too long. I'm alone here forever.

b

another brick in the...

like chewing food as a child in a state of tears
it just wont go down, it stays in an unpalatable consistency
i can't seem to wrap around the subject
i think of and rather do all the things I've forgotten to, but this

this is akin to watching martha stewart on acid
to plucking toe nails with a crowbar
to knocking out my own teeth on the ground/street with hands tied behind my back
to shaving my head and then eating the hair
to letting an angry arab doctor take a culture from inside my penis with a hooked device (actually happened once, after developing prostititus after too many drugs and thinking I might have VD)
to hanging out with my dad and his new wife

statistics homework - i would rather be fighting in iraq

such stupid opinions about something so simple
this is why i'm sure i don't have it in perspective
if I could just get it in focus i'd be fine
because, of course, i would rather do a little homework than all those things

I took all the things I was interested in first, desert first if you like
now i'm trying to get over a giant speed bump, and the bearings on my board are blown. I need to get up some speed then I can ollie up and over.

Today's my health care class. I actually enjoy that one a lot. I can never tell what the instructor's gonna say. She endorses smoking pot as an alternative to alcohol use. Not that strange but for it's source in this case. A note: When she said she never knew of Peter Garrett in a previous post, and I found that odd, as she says she spent time in Australia as the regional president of greenpeace - well, she said she finished in the 70's and came back here. Just thought 'id add that. PG only got going in the early 80's from what I know, so I can see how she may have never heard of him.
But who cares. Martha Stewart taking acid might kinda fun to watch though - above I mean't me trippin' and watchin her show. But...

Gotta go! Too much time bloggin!!!

b

Java Joint

I got a job. I'm working in a little coffee house/restaurant by the ocean. I like it so far. The clientel are cool. There are paintings on the walls. I've waited tables before. Red star in the insignia, and on my t-shirt for work. The two girls who own it are partners. We "pool tips," all of us. All the money you make/earn goes in a tip jar and is redistributed amongst the staff every two weeks. You must trust strangers sometimes. A test of you're greed instinct. Server minimum wage in Florida is 2 something an hour, the rational is that you're making tips so hour wage is less. I make $5.15 an hour @ Java Joint though, that check comes every other Tuesday. I get a free meal every shift, and the food is wonderful. All the coffee or tea I can drink. Lots of vegetarian options. I'm not a pure vegetarian of course, but I try to be as much as possible. When friends or family come in the owners insist on offering something, "on the house." The senario is of course a microcosmic socialism.

When I've waited tables before you might get half off a meal. You have assigned side work that must be completed before you can leave, and everyone's got their section on the floor, you can help your fellow workers but it's actually optional. You make you're own tips for you're own work. You can claim the tips as income with the government, supposed to, but most don't. The business owner gets none of what you make of course. But he/she's only paying you the minimum possible as wage. This senario is obviously capitalism.

Both can work. If all who are involved are on the same page by choice then either is fine. Both are different, both are same.

Java = coffee, Joint = Pot...Coffee Pot!

b

my space

I just set up a "my space" account: www.myspace.com/versaviceburkley

Not sure what it's all about yet. I filled in the profile requirements.


(post-note - i don't have a clue how to get back into this. Either I screwed up the original e-mail address or something with the password, whatever, frozen in time)

(post-post note - now I'm using www.myspace.com/bradleyalbertburkley)

b

Blog as Messageboard

Today (all morning)- Mark Sandman, Blonde Redhead, Nick Drake, Frank Black, "Reward" The Church, Smog, Lungfish, "Dominoes" Syd Barrett, Love and Rockets, Electrafixion, Nico, and Spoon (<-really good newer band). I've been checking out some of the other blogs this morning too: Tony Pucci, Fandorin, eek and Virginia. Virginia - I read the info that you linked - as if an invisible monkey climbed on and won't let go. Human suffering, one of the three things we all share, manifests itself in the least subtle ways sometimes. I hope the pain evaporates. I'll be thinking of you.

IndraEek - I must agree that there are often little protests on corners in G-ville. I often got the impression that the characters there weren't so much interested in impressing a message as they were just trying to get people to look at them. I think I even saw a sign once - "I'll Pray for You." ;)

Fandorin Files - Cool info. A girl with a guitar who is not a girl with a guitar but becomes a girl with a guitar - suddenly Donovan pops in my head!

Tony Pucci - The master of finding the light in shadows and bliss in meloncholy. Music poetry and living alike.

I'll be checking back on your blogs - it's all just a matter of time finding. I'm not sure why I find myself reporting the random selections of my CD player so. Roger moaning about pigs on the wing a second ago, now Cy from The Fixx singing of Camphor. Just something cool about hearing a commercial free station playing all your sure-bet favorites.

Radio - b over and out!