Ikebana Boat by the Owl

This poem was inspired by a MFA exhibit of the works of the monocular Fagin of the glass art world, Chihuly. The art was titled, "Ikebana Boat," thusly, the poem is eponymous. Might add some more, but I think the brevity is one of its most alluring assets. Google search images for Ikebana Boat for a number of pale imitations.

The Alluvium of Lake Michigan by The Owl

Every year, in early summer, a certain fish dies in droves and is deposited on the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan.  The carcasses are layered three, maybe four, deep along an undulating line where the gentle waves exhaust themselves and leave behind their morbid cargo and depart to whence they came.

Sunbathing sucks when atop a pile of fish rotting in the summer sun; you want clean beaches for the summer months, then you got to shovel away the dead.  Piled black garbage bags filled with fish guts and flies and copious amounts of sand form tar-black mountains on the curb of the street.  The mountains are heavy with death, rot, and earth.

And then, the beach is handed over to, in what one human described as “The two species making up the overwhelming majority, after everything smaller than your fingertip is discounted, are Larus smithsonianus and Homo sapien.

The beaches of Chicago’s North Shore are up-current from the mega-industry to the south, and the water was usually clean enough to swim in, clear enough to hunt for stones.  Oh, those were good days, when I was young.  The world was one long beach.  It began with a parking lot, under the looming shadow of The Tower.  Adjacent, were crowds of blankets, coolers and pale skin slathered in sunscreen roped in by the floating boundaries of the swimming area; the beach then became private property, more peaceful and solitary, though with a hint of menace that grew as you moved further down the beach, away from the familiar crowds and into the freedom of very rich peoples’ private, and mostly deserted, beaches.

I don’t know their condition today.  I haven’t been back in a while and have no reliable source to attest to the cleanliness of the sand, or the cold, crystal purity of the water.  I imagine the seagulls are still there, since they feed on trash and there cannot be a shortage of trash in the greater Chicago area.

The one problem was always people, that was always what would bring you down, and, ironically, you would bring them down as well.  To some it is safer to hide than risk the shame of a shared humanity.

I learned to drink and take drugs on those beaches at night.  Sometimes blind, black skies, with Bic lighters as the only illumination; other times a shining moon and an endless shimmering path reflecting on the water.  These brilliant nights could make one believe there was such a simple way into the infinite mysteries of life...no, the true paths are grossly less picturesque.

Oh, praise the lord, who deposited me on the shores of the lake.  Under blessings and immorality, beauty and beastliness, I lived innocently, then not so innocently, then rebelliously, then decadently, then, I would like to believe, maybe morally.  I got out of this metamorphosing dance around the lake by finding a new source of aquatic wonder in a different city.  I burned most of the memories on my final trip down the track, or tarmac, or where ever I made my escape, I cannot remember.

six-legged giraffe(Why oh why didn't I choose the red pill?) by Da Owl

She’s near;

hear                the tramp of her step,

tchick, tchock!

        like empty, hollow skulls upon an infected tree

        that sound, like jumpin’ jazz riddims

                banged out in groups of three.

...a cold night, when the roof loomed low and the walls were like

        Imperial Star Ship trash compactors,

the six-legged giraffe was in a cold corner

        her two eight-ball eyes locked on me.

The pit of my stomach: hollow,

the weight of my head: 0 lbs, 0 oz,

and a marvelous, masochistic tingle in the head of my penis.

"32" of Liquid Crystal anodyne" By The Owl

Got a contribution from a friend of mine The Owl, this is what he writes: 

Empty is modern life.  Void of a purpose, we live in physical comfort and security but writhe in mental anguish at the dismal aspect of meaningless existence.  How the fuck, then, do we get by?

Reading Kaczynski's Manifesto, among what amounts to paranoid venom against an innately evil, yet strangely ambiguous, "technology", something of a truth appears.  Modern man, supplied with all the necessities of survival, obtainable with a minimum of effort, must supplement his psyche with "surrogate activities."  These activities are our jobs, aspirations, hobbies and passions.  They are, in the accepted morality of today, all of what constitutes a healthy and useful life.

It is unfortunate, however, that they are all bull shit.  At the root, each an every pursuit not focused on the basic survival or gratification of the basic senses is a pathetic attempt at fulfilling that empty hollow hole we all feel deep inside.

Whether Kaczynski is right to blame technology for these woes is a mute point, since it is obvious that technology and humanity walk hand in hand.  Thus, to denigrate technology is to denigrate homo sapien as well, which, all of us being human --or am I writing for future A?I-- is pointless.

Taking technology, and all its circumstances, as a priori, we see that this vapid, wasteland of purpose is unavoidable and must be dealt with as a force outside our control.

How to deal?  Suicide?  Hedonism?  Some form of blinder that allows us, in the words of Peter Gibbons, to "just come home and think I've been fishing all day or something?"  Or is the ability to deal simply, turn a bilnd eye to what's apparent and plow on ahead, what most of us term "growing up"?

Last weekend, these existential woes had me deep in a shadowy valley.  A highly anticipated day off from work, without school or any other obligation, should have been blessed, but instead I awoke with a terrible feeling of anguish.  I could think of nothing to do, or more to the point, nothing that I wanted to do.

So, at her suggestion, Ellen and I wandered down to the Charles river to watch the regatta.  (By the bye, did you not know that I now live with my girlfirend, ******?)

It was boring.  The boats moved endlessly down the river and it was impossible to know what you were watching.  Who was winning?  Who was racing?  The fluid strokes of the rowers and the boats cutting through the water were aesthetically pleasing, but so were the clouds in the sky and I could have watched them just as easily (which I did).

The most notable aspect was the veritable fair the grew up along the river banks, having nothing to do with skulling or Vespolis and everything to do with Consumption.  Apparently, the Head of the Charles is a great place to stock up on free samples of junk food, shop for overpriced clothing and be more or less cerebrially inundated with commercial ectoplasm.  I had no wish to push through a crowd like an infant pig to the fat teats of the Dunkin Donuts truck handing out free shot glass sized Pumpkin Spice Lattes, so I applied myself to naviating safely through the masses and not sobbing out of pity for the all those present.

This has nothing to do with my overall argument other than to set the scene for my emotional state of mind.  Any other day, any other time, the setting and circumstances are different, but the basic story is the same.  Without a surrogate activity, I am depressed, lost, confused, antisocial and altogether, so pathetically, sane.

Now, the day continued in this blase manner, growing ever more tedious and unendurable.  Naturally, my ill feeling permeated the air around me and infected my significant other (who doesn't share my former sentiments, or at least refuses to acknowledge them) until we were both exhausted with the effort of living effortlessly.

Towards evening, Ellen brought up the current Best Buy sale.  Our apartment was without a television, one white wall in our living space glaringly vacant, the whole room some how incomplete.  We were living in American sin.  She suggested we atone for this sin by buying a TV, and in the process, though this was not stated, only implied, supply ourselves with a purpose.

Consuming - not the food we need, nor the sights, sounds, smells and touches of an active life- but commercial goods, is an extremely effective surrogate activity.  From the moment I agreed to the plan, I felt immensely better.  We looked up bus schedules, purposefully gathered the necessary cards, bags and clothing for the trip, all the while feeling more and more sure of our own agency.  Throughout all of this, I was aware of the fiction, and yet it still affected me positively.  I knew how pathetic, how false and, may I use the word, EVIL this turn of events was, but like scratching your ass in public, once you give in to the craving, even the disapproving glare of a beautiful girl cannot stop you from sphincter spelunking.

We took the trip, the deal went down.  All the way home we guarded our precious new purchase like it was the physical manifestation of that happy feeling.  It really (and this is totally without sarcasm) was a wonderful night.  All because we were able to fill that drafty void of existence with this greedy, self-centered activity.

You could argue that there are many other surrogate activities that are not so base.  But with each example, e.g. jogging, reading philosophy on the internet, volunteering at a hospital, smoking phat-ass blunts etc. you must acknowledge that at the root, these are all desperate attempts to paper over a structural fracture at the cornerstone of our being.

There is no conclusion here, only complaint.  Please respond.