it’s now 2 hours and 22 minutes into my “writing time.” Nor am i standing still and picking my nose, slogging just seems to take on an added dimension when wading through fecal saturated flood waters watching the faces of people who have lost loved ones needlessly. i do not wade anymore, my anatomy doesn’t fight infection like it used to and meningitis takes on a new complexion in my memory banks for my youngest brother’s brush with 7 year-old death is haunted by ancient, but whispered distinctions between “viral and bacterial.” - a day later · 211020 . . . i went to the well, and the well was dry. This morning i committed to sandbagging for things are so dire on the shore where i live, even the limping efforts of an out-of-shape foreigner are useful when bulwarking an angry China Sea. It breaks my heart to know in my scientifically artistic mind that dreams of staunching the rising tide are more akin to the children’s story of the emperor so enamored of his power he drowned in his throne when the sea did not obey his command, than the stouthearted cheery face of the crowd who graciously gave me access to the help line.
I only wish i was still the working fool of my youth, instead i am a caricature of some aged hippy looking for Further, as though i’d recognize it if it rolled over my big toe. There is no way to recapture youth and vitality except for right living, good companions and a cheery disposition. I find i am of that cohort, who is oddly more kind to strangers than my own self, or at least aspects of my self. I’ve always been something of a libertine with exotic erotic proclivities, only by the time i reached a point in my emotional development where i could openly share those fantasies, animal magnetism had turned to rusty iron, and the stench of rotting teeth from too much tobacco and not enough flossing. I was never good at the vanity game having grown up as the two-eyed cyclops with the congenital bald spot over his left temporal lobe in a family of lookers · think intensely attractive people such that i could never quite understand what the eldest brother saw when standing in front of a mirror for hours, or how it could take Pop and hour and a half to trim his beard.
I realize now how very fortunate i have been to not have an external image to live up to - or stand behind depending on your perspective · rather i have been forced to consider appearance as a very minor component to that persona which fronts my path on this earth. It would be grand to declare my unconscious is that which you experience in your dealings with me, but even resorting to the “me” demonstrates how vain that fantasy is, however worthy. I have saddled my unconscious with a variety of “me’s” from different epochs in my journey. This morning for example goofing with the impresario of the local bistro i’ve grown quite fond of, he pulled from his riff-line the kung fu pose we two old men tease each other with when feeling frisky or wishing to bolster the other’s fearsome character, and rather than assume the stance i said to him after he holstered his lethal fist, “would you like to see it again?” using my best Clint Eastwood “do you feel lucky punk, well do ya’,” glance - it took him a second, but before he could reply i asked him if he’d ever picked up his teeth with broken fingers?
And this is man-playing, or me posing in hats i’d needed to feel safe in some environments i’ve lived. The sad truth is few men say anything encouraging, “nice shot; fine looking shirt; I admire your kindness,” instead the competition for poon tang that nobody wants to discuss demands that we prevail over others to demonstrate the viability of our sperm, as though somehow one’s ability to dominate another is the best indication of furthering the gene pool. Feminists don’t want to talk about this because _______fill in the blank, but they are as responsible as either gender for the “toxic masculinity” that has become the convenient scapegoat in current, “blame everybody but me - point the finger - the fucking ship is going down, i can’t swim,” panic one of the many post civilization narratives. Nor are we lost and condemned to a senseless end, devoid of meaning. My morning effort, however slight, buoyed me more than i have words to express, not for any personal reason, but to witness a community assess-and-elbows contributing gallantly to each other’s wellbeing - however inexorable be the rising seas ·
Stick a fork in me, i’m done; i’d come here, ostensibly chasing a romantic fiction, and substantiated that flaccid logic with the addendum - “if anyplace in the world can turn the tide of our extinction by our own hand, and demonstrate leadership for a path out, it would be Vietnam.” · i may be right; though i’ve met more acolytes of the fascist regime entrenched in my native land and being hounded out of office as we speak; i’ve met more predatory entrepreneurs selling digital snake oil than i’d have wished for, and a tourist industry that is one step removed from Hollywood Blvd’s lock on destination addiction, yet i stay; hopefully i continue to have my nose rubbed in my cultural presumptions in a way which learning is the only option available and a loving self awareness becomes a path less lonely with a loving other who finds my ignorant charm more irresistible than my myopic self-loathing is resistible; stranger things have happened - you're still reading ·
jts 20/10/2020-21/10/20
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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