Friday, October 31, 2003

And everything's emptying into white.

Exams, may they be forever cursed, have begun in ernest as it were.
Still getting over the shock.
Had me first one on Thursday afternoon, for Chem343. A nasty little 2-hour number from the anals of Third year. Due to innexperience with 2-hour exams, I was forced to race through about half of it in the last half hour. Bad planning all round I reckon, and i intend to do better in my two other 2-hour exams (shudder).

Study is too hard. It is sucky and boring.

Hmm. It does, however, allow me to enjoy the lavish amounts of time i spend doing absolutely nothing of consequence.

Today was a thunderstorm. It hailed for a bit, and was an interesting diversion.
I am very tired as i went to bed at 3 AM and now i need to go to bed so as i can study tommorrow (unlike today).

Friday, October 24, 2003

It was like a tapestry, unfolding, as it were, with the grandeur of a thousand candle-lit surpises, right into their very sight. The clouds seemed to sing with the fullest joy of simply being cloudy. The rain provided complex percussion, and the hill kinda sat and listened, like and audience. I was not the conductor. Far from it, i was the person whose job it is to ensure that nobodys music stands remain fallend over. And what a job.

But no.
These are lies
And though beggars cannot be choosers
Thems only beggars that chose to be so in the first place, as my mother always used to say.


Just a random post to idle away the time, and to fend of the skulking form of study with a good left hook.

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

HAH
just writ another one
right after previos post
And it is better than they :

There was silence on my pillow
On that midnight winter’s eve
And the evening breeze
Brought sorrow-tears
Flowing down in streams
The lights were all switched off
And the gangster in my head
Screaming out your name
Singing in drunken monotone

And you’d say:
Its all a paper towl
You’ll throw it all away
I wont come back to where you are
You’re stuck in yesterday

And where am I on this winter’s day?
Asleep to dream and dreams to say
To speak to me
My silent redeemer’s voice
Till light cracks out
And renders choice, void.

And you say:
Give it half a chance
Don’t throw it all away

And the bleeding breaths quiet
Silence falls
And you are gone again.

And you’d say:
Its all a paper towl
You’ll throw it all away
I wont come back to where you are
You’re stuck in yesterday
My my
But ole' Dunedin has really hotted up of late
Its like the seething magma is clawing its way to the surface directly below it
And we are but ants in its path.

It also makes study even more the chore
With streaming sweat and uncomfortable sunny glare here there and over the hill
And it is oficial crunch time, where the chocolate bar meets the anvil at 300 times the speed of light (a speed only recently acomplished by shining a lazer through caesium.).
Like the adds say I spose "soldier on"
Now if only we had some soldiers...


This could be my lucky day
But now Im in for it
Put up with a fight
Or go down without
It makes little difference
With eyes wide shut

I should be at work
Bringing home the pay
But the sea-green sights
Have blocked my way
Yet more interferance
With eyes wide shut

And I see nothing
And I see all
At home all alone
In the suburban sprawl
Like a rat in a cage

This could be my lucky day
Lotto ticket,
Who's a winner?
Lets look it up on
Our TV-for-hire..
Or not.

Sunday, October 19, 2003

Californian sunrise
Bespeckled sea-children
Squint to catch the light
While angry parents beckon
To cast their wrath
Through the wind's might
Lying on a beach
Scattered on the sand
I thought atlast
You'd understand
The guarded life
And cutting knives
Chopping boards
For free, on sale.


Its amazing, you always said you would
Fly to the emerald isles to capture
Astray leprechauns, and sail away
On a government jumbojet
All payed for and sponsored
By her-madgesty herself
Straight from the taxpayer's pocket
To the heights of the alpine meadows
A hidden nook for posterity
To shelter from the storm
Of highschool dropouts
And nuclear squabbles
From your vantage point
By the riverside, by the lake
Nowhere and everywhere all the same.



Credit checks
And lolly packets
Cannot hide your name from me
Filthy lies
And roundabouts
You cannot run away from me
When the wolves howl
Hungry for blood
And the sky sheds tears
Like acid drops
And weavils are feasting
On all you've got
This is an unhappy thing......



Lost for words
In an empty space
Crafted in his soul

Thursday, October 16, 2003

This morning has been filled to brim with negative vibrations so far. Humming in my ears now as I type.

Got to bed late again last night, and had a 8 AM start for a 9 AM lecture. So it was up early and exhausted for me once more (... into the breach dear friends..??).

Anyhoo, got up, had shower, and then the thought struck me (as throughts are want to do), my bike has a flat tire. So I whipped out the bike repair kit and found and sealed the puncture over a light breakfast of toast and tea. Today, was not to be my day, unfortunately. The rubber-cementy stuff failed to dry in the 20 minutes i gave it. Placing the patch on only schmered the confarned stuff all over the place. By then it was 8:57 AM, and not looking flash. Wonderful brother Lynton offered me the use of his bike to speed down to uni and avoid missing to much of the lecture (making him postpone his university trip somewhat).

I got here 5 minutes late in a whirl of hurried breaths and exhausted quads, veritably leaping to the lecture theater located on the other side of campus. Only to get there to find an empty theater and not a word of explanation crosswise. And so I sit here, at the wonderful, free (fee-payed) uni computers spilling my woes to the world, waiting for some chem person to arrive so that I may accost them for some notes I have lost and now need to fotocopy.

On a little aside, it occurr to me, that studying (for exams), especially as lecutures and labs wind to a halt, can really screw both ones perception of time, and ones perception of selfhood. I keep forgeting what day it is, the time of day, and any/all appointments/bookings i have for the day leading to an unsightly clutter. Once or twice so far this week (being the begining of O-ficial study time according to the Matthew LB charter) I have caught myself wandering around randomly in persuit of something that I know not what it is...
Very disturbing.

Schawhell.
Seems someone comes bearing notes.
Chow for now..

Monday, October 13, 2003

TIs exam time soon
And the students here are full
Of bluster and fluster
Like hen-pecked animals
They clutter the halls
In mindless fury
Driven on by desire
For the golden 'A'
As if life can be found inside
An exam paper
Instead of the usual glass bottom.

And I intend not to join them
Hidden away
The hours of a long day
Suckling on the knowledge
In my notes.
Today Chemistry
Tomorow who knows?

Possibly more sleep
Though I do have a lecture appointment to keep.....


My room is lacking in upholstery...
Maybe tomorow is the day for a remedy?


Sunday, October 12, 2003

And ther she was
Two feet away
And an ocean apart.

It is Saturday still, but only barely, and we have Lord's Supper tommorow, and are picking up some Dutch fellow on the way to church, so it is up early, and to bed forthwith, I spose.

But, said I to my self, I said, "Self, you need to keep the old post-o-meter (TM) ticking over." To which came the inevitable reply, "Self," I said to my self, said I," You are so much more correct than you could ever know." "How", replied again I to myself, and again the reply came," Never you mind".

And so here i am.
joy.

HMm.
There is an inky blackness outside my window. I keep waking up at night wondering when it is going to eat me up. It is there, and eventually, it will, I am sure, so the question is a matter of timing rather than possibilities.
It just hangs there, black as black as black as a hole in space, deepening as the sun flees from our little city, on its perpetual flight from the night. I could go out, with a stick, and dispell such illusions with a few zealous swipes at the darkness. But it would just ooze back in again, the moment my back was turned, so I would be forced to walk backwards through the mist-filled night air, stick in hand, all the way to the back door once more, for safety's sake.

Such frivalities do not come without a price, one I am reluctant to pay. What, you may say, is this unnamed price. Suffice to say, I shall not pay it. That is all the information available to the public I'm afraid. I dont make the rules. So life shall go on, and I shall to, waking at night to the chill feeling of eyes in that murky blackness peering at me in my nice warm bed with ill intentions in mind.


On another topic completely, or not, I have decided, that no matter how many hours I sleep, I will still be a certain level of tired during the day, which is unfortunate, for I am deeply longing for the feeling of complete non-tiredness to enfold its caring arms around me once in a while. Adding to this, going to bed after 2:00 A M will always leave me with a day of uselessness, where there is an invisible block that prevents me having complete contact with the real world. It is interesting, if I do not try to understand the environment, all my sight and hearing and smell become this great mish-mash of nonsence, almost a movie in and of itself. In such a state I cannot work with any degree of efficiency or purpose.

Further things about sleeping, dreams. I have been thinking about this for a while, and I am curious, as to how often, and how many times people die in their dreams. Of late (ie- this year) the most times I have died in one dream is 4. It was quite a fantastic dream actually. And, if you care to waste a few minutes of your life, I would be honored to relate it to you:

The tale begins with me and an un-named, unidentifiable friend, we are both members of some unnamed and unidentified gang. There is a gang war going on. There are numerous gangs involved, and me and my friend are out and about with combat rifles shooting up other gang members. All goes well until my friend yells "Sniper!", pointing to a rooftop across the park. He dives for cover, and I attempt to follow. He makes it behind a park bench, but I am not so fortunate. A loud crack sounds, and I feel a bullet rip its way through my head, and my appendages go numb. I drop to the ground and stop breathing. Everything goes black. I died.

A short time later, I awake, pick up my gun and hide behind the park bench where my friend waits, having picked off the sniper himself. Slowly but surely, I gain full controll of my appendages again, and the pain caused by the hole in my head subsides, and just as well. Into the street behind us pours a number of uzi wielding other-gang maniacs, firing off randomly. We initially don't bother with cover, opening fire upon them, taking down one or two before they notice. My friend once again dives off to the side behind a building for cover, and once again I am too slow to follow him. Uzi bullets rip through me, as they all turn on me. I manage to take down three or four more before, once again, I succumb to the warm and dark embrace of death.

A short time later, I awake, and look around for my gun, but it is missing, and somehow I know that the uzi wielding gang members took it. The park now miraculously has a large chicken-mesh fence around it, which, for some reason, apeared to me to provide excellent cover (similar to a solid wall), and yet good vantage. My friend is nearby again, waiting for me, and we creep around the park perimeter till we come to the opposite corner. From there we leg it across the street, and down an alley way. In the street beyond, however, is a large number of German soldiers (presumably from the 'German-soldier' gang- WWII styles), marching along in a victory parade. They had won the gang war, and were celebrating joyously.

Making our way back to the park once more, we see a convoy of WWII tanks parading down the street, banners flapping in the breeze, resplendit with the resounding cheers of the hastily assembled crowd. And then it hits me. There is going to be an ambush. "Ambush" I cry, and duck for cover behind a nearby park bench. Weaponless and fearfull, I watch with dismay, as lazer weapon packing "Russians" Storm the parade out of myriad alleyways. What followed was a wholesale slaughter of the relatively unadvanced German forces. I looked about, preparing to flee, but as I got up to run, I felt a searing pain in the back of my head, as a lazer gun was targeted upon me. Instantly I was fried to a crisp, dropping to the ground in a dead heap.

Some time later I awoke, charred to a crisp, and moving with difficulty. Nearby, lay the charred corpse of a German gang-member, and grasped in his hands, was a nice assault rifle, which I promptly snaffled up. My friend was also again beside me, completely unscathed, and beckoning me to follow him. He ducked down a nearby alleyway, and I hobbled after him. As I crossed a street, I glanced to my right, and not one-hundred meters away, a small convoy of German tanks and infantry rolled down the street. They turned off into a side-street, and I thought "Oh, no! STupid Germans, that way is a trap!" Sure enough, shortly after, gun fire broke out, followed by several large explosion. The infantry came pouring out into the street, some firing back where they came from others just running for their lives. It was then that I noticed that the fighting was still audible elsewhere, but I knew that it was only a matter of time before the Germans lost.

Overwhelmed by a strange curiosity as to the exact nature of the demise of the German mini-convoy, I cautiously advanced to the side-street and peered round the corner. My vision was blocked by the charred hulks of destroyed tanks, so I was forced to advance a small way down the street for a good look. About 30 meters away from me, I spied a bunker, full of rocket laucher and flamethrower wielding maniacle Russian infantry. I turned to flee. but heard a Russian voice cry out in alarm, followed by the sound of rocket launching and flame throwing. Fortunately, I avoided the thrown flames. Unfortunately, a launched rocket struck me square in the back and I was thrown 20 meters in the explosion. I tried to get up, but couldn't feel my legs, and so was forced to lie on the ground in the middle of the street writhing about uselessly. That was, until the Russians had reloaded their launchers. The second barrage threw me tens of meters further, and blew me to ribbons, killing me before I landed.

A short time later, I awoke, lying in the street , cut to ribbons, and in all sorts of pain. The Russians were advancing, so I needed to duck away. Scrambling to my feet, I fled down a nearby alleyway, and headed randomly through the city until, by some fluke of chance, I met up with my nameless friend, who sat waiting for me at a street corner behind some stacked barrels and produce crates. It was then that I knew that the Russians had won, and were going house to house finding and executing other-gang-affiliated persons. We had to run, and run we did. We fled down the street and round a corner, straight back to the park again, which we sprinted across, and down another street, barely getting infront of the Russian searchers.

We had to hide, so we went from door to door, trying to open them. The first door that opened, we went through, knowing somehow, that the occupants were affiliated with the Russians, so their house would not be searched very thoroughly. Going through the dining room, where a bunch of Mafia style gangsters were having KFC and playing cards, we found a musty old girls toilets. Double bonus. We knew, that even if the Russians searched the house, they would not search the females toilets. As a precaution, however, we climbed up the walls, and hung on the ceiling rafters.

Sure enough, within a few seconds of finding our spot, there was a loud bang on the door to the house, followed by angry Russian voices. A large number of thumps, smashes, and scrapes ensued as the house was searched relatively quickly by the Russians. They did not even open the door to the lady's toilets.

Some time later, I noticed that my burns stopped hurting, and that my cuts had miraculously healed. I looked down at my status bar, and noticed I had gone back to full health. I also noticed that my gun had ) bullets left, so I reloaded. The statusbar dissappeared, and me and my friend swung down from the rafters and exited, once again passing through the living room filled with gun-wielding, card-playing, KFC-consuming Mafia gangsters. Outside, all was quiet, and a beautiful dusk was falling. I looked around for my friend, but he was nowhere to be seen. Obviously he had gone home, so, I decided, I had better also, as it was tea time, and I was hungry. Ducking and leaping from burned out tank-shell, to ransacked building husk, I safely made my way home. Opening the door, I sat down and could smell the scent of freshly baked bread coming from the kitchen. It was then that I awoke, feeling very hungry indeed.



Boy , that was longer than I thought. 1334 words to be exact. I am actually surprised I remember it so vividly still, as I dreamed it about 2 months ago. It is not the only dream where I have died multiple times, and risen from the dead either, just the one I remember best. I am just wondering if other people have the same occurance in their dreams also.

Speaking off which, the time has come for me to pass from this land for another 8.5 hours or so.
Far thee well on thy journeys
And a blessed night to all.

Monday, October 06, 2003

I am calm
Adrift on an ocean of wet
With the gentle seas
carressing my every need
Evermore
I shall be freed
From the tumultous roar
Found far from here,
Adrift on an ocean of wet.

The eyes, herbal eyes
Glistening down
As showers of moondrops
Cluster arround
To bear me away
Safe and sound
To where I'm ment to be
Afloat upon this sea.

I can be the wind
Winding its way
Through the mazes of islands
Peppering the horisons
And scattering the birds
As the flutter to and fro
To and fro
Encompasing
Their evervescent dreams
With the rasping cries
That toll the hours
Away at sea.

And surely
The surety
Of the musty beams
Must seem
So false.
But I know,
I know
That the sea-made clasps
They bring me on
Like fire from the sun.

I am serene
Unseen
I pass above the waves
Crashing in on unrevealed shores.
The gate unlocks to heaven's doors
And scarlet fire does kiss the darkness
And all is flaming bliss and peace
Upon the ocean's starkness.

And surely
The surety
Of the creaking beams
Must seem
So false.
But I know,
I know
I'd rather die
In the ocean's embrace
Than never see the sun.





Hmmmm.
Yes.
Yesterday was Sunday. That is a fairly unremarkable statment, a sort of one in seven, but not just any Sunday it were.
I awoke, with clouded breath
TO the chill greetings of the frosty snow
As it wafted down from untold heights to blanket our fair land
In a frosting of pure unadalterated white.
I remember thinking very un-Christian thoughts.
Hoping it would snow too heavy so that I could miss Sunday services and instead enjoy lucious wonderful snow.
IT did not eventuate, with the snow stopping and starting all over the show.
Until just after about 3 pm, the sun comed out once again, and the snow was
Within ten minutes never forever more.
So sad it were
But the beauty impresses on me still.
It were a nice Sunday it were


Today had bad bad bad bad presentation of poster and speak that were unprepared.
Lashed it together with bindings of blind optimism, I am hoping it is not the complete shite I am feeling it is right now
Time will tell, but marks more so.
As it so happens. I
am too much the tired
To be doing anything more tonight
And I shall bow out with dignity....

Friday, October 03, 2003

Thought I'd post the lyric supplied to me by Matthew Bartlett of Grant Lee Buffallo, to show you all some real poetry:


BETHLEHEM STEEL

There was a light
Blue as a welder's torch
It used to shine
Over the field
And all of the wise men
Strong men
Were drawn for miles
Followed a star
To Bethlehem Steel

Our mother's father
Worked here in World War Two
On the main floor
Operating the drill
And in his open palms
Little splinters remind him of
The booming days
Days, of Bethlehem Steel

But the steeples on the hills they point
To a better life beyond this one
And that promise penetrates the clouds
And mighty walls of brick red cinnamon

Take a walk past
Lazarus Moving 'n' Storage
Behind the Goodman's Furniture store
See the smoke stacks rise
On up to heaven's step
While on earth we're burnin' this miracle
Iron ore

But the steeples on the hills they point
To a better life beyond this one
And that promise penetrates the clouds
Even when they block the fiery sun
The sun

There was a light
Blue as a welder's torch
It used to shine
Over the field
And all of the wise men
Strong men
Were drawn for miles
Followed a star
To Bethlehem Steel



---

THE ONLY WAY DOWN

You've come this far,
Followed each
And every star
Not to reach the peak would
Seem so wrong
Your eyes look tired
Want to sleep
Although this climb's
So steep
We must keep pressing on

Down, it's the only way down
It's the only way down
Down, it's the only way down
It's the only way down

I've heard you sing
With quiet voice
Of adverse things
Now you've made the choice
To overcome
This mountains' spire
Towering
Below the summit
Cowering
You've seen how others clung

Down, it's the only way down
It's the only way down
Down, it's the only way down
It's the only way down

You've come this far
Along this wind
Around this bend
Look at where you are.

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

HMm
Havent posted a while.

Not much happened lately.
Lota work.
Forgot to get an assignment in on time so lost 10%. Pretty peeved.
But overall papar, its only 1% so thats not too bad.

But also.
Had some interesting things to write
But they have flitted from conciousness.
I must recommend Abbey Road by the Beatles
Listened to it alot lately.
Fabulus.

Enter key my friend.


Also. I need to goto bed earlier.
As i am rediculously tired.

Fly away buzzy bee
WHere the air is free
But don't forget to visit me
Sittign here, in a sycamore tree
ANd who knows what I have to see
Something great and fancy
A tune for dancing
For prancing
For dallying about
While the air whispers sweet consolations
And the neighbours glancing
Wonder and pout
Thinking
Who is this fool?
This foppish lout?
I am me
So come and see
My comfy perch
In my very own tree.
And there together
YOu and I
Shall let time pass by
Listening to the weather.