Days Volume Two

* For every soul lost in this particular hell, there are several others locked inside madness - unable to exit the world that stands at the threshold of their bodies. Even though they seem to be there, they cannot be counted as present. The man, for example, who goes everywhere with a set of drumsticks, pounding the pavement with them in a reckless, nonsensical rhythm, stooped over awkwardly as he advances along the street, beating and beating away at the cement. Perhaps he thinks he is doing important work. Perhaps, if he did not do what he did, the city would fall apart. Perhaps the moon would spin out of its orbit and come crashing into the earth. There asre the ones who talk to themselves, who mutter, who scream, who curse, who groan, who tell themselves stories as if to someone else. The man I saw today, sitting like a heap of garbage in front of Grand Central Station, the crowds rushing past him, saying in a loud, panic-stricken voice: "Third Marines...eating bees...the bees...

* Two teenage girls to face court after pursuit across Sydney 2008-09-21 05:39:05 Two teenage girls will face court today after stealing a taxi and engaging police in a lengthy pursuit across the city and western suburbs yesterday morning. About 5am (Saturday 20 September 2008) a taxi driver stopped at a petrol station on Victoria Road, Rozelle. The driver entered the shop to pay for fuel and returned to the forecourt where he found his Ford Falcon taxi had been stolen. A short time later police from Ashfield saw the vehicle on Lyons Road, Rozelle and followed it across the Iron Cove Bridge and Anzac Bridge before attempting to stop the vehicle on the Harbour Bridge. The driver ignored police directions to stop and a pursuit was initiated. The vehicle was followed along the Gore Hill Freeway, Pacific Highway, M2 Motorway and M7 Motorway where it is alleged the driver drove toward a police officer who was deploying road spikes. The police officer took evasive action to avoid being hit b...

* But beggars and performers make up only a small part of the vagabond population. They are the aristocracy, the elite of the fallen. Far more numerous are those with nothing to do, with nowhere to go. Many are drunks - but that term does not do justice to the devastation they embody. Hulks of despair, clothed in rags, their faces bruised and bleeding, they shuffle through the streets as though in chains. Asleep in doorways, staggering insanely through traffic, collapsing on sidewalks - they seem to be everywhere the moment you look for them. Some will starve to death, others will die of exposure, still others will be beaten or burned or tortured... Baudelaire. Il me semble que je serais toujours bien la ou je ne suis pas. In other words: It seems to me that I will always be happy in the place where I am not. Or, more bluntly: Wherever I am not is the place where I am myself. Or else, taking the bull by the horns: Anywhere out of the world. Paul Auster. It was the drugs, she said, and ...

* A fountain's pulsing sobs--like this my blood Measures its flowing, so it sometimes seems. I hear a gentle murmur as it streams; Where the wound lies I've never understood. Like water meadows, boulevards are flooded. Cobblestones, crisscrossed by scarlet rills, Are islands; creatures come and drink their fill. Nothing in nature now remains unblooded. I used to hope that wine could bring me ease, Could lull asleep my deeply gnawing mind. I was a fool: the senses clear with wine. I looked to Love to cure my old disease. Love led me to a thicket of IVs Where bristling needles thirsted for each vein. The Fountain of Blood by Charles Baudelaire Translated by Rachel Hadas Clairvoyance. Mistakes. The Holy Grail. We came skittering out of the ark into some strange form of altered consciousness, and all was lost, lost, as we struggled to the surface. These things were not meant to be. Kaleidoscopes of colour nurtured our well being. Suffocating, surfacing, surrounded by bubbles, ...

* When The Deal Goes Down In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light Where wisdom grows up in strife My bewildering brain, toils in vain Through the darkness on the pathways of life Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air Tomorrow keeps turning around We live and we die, we know not why But I'll be with you when the deal goes down We eat and we drink, we feel and we think Far down the street we stray I laugh and I cry and I'm haunted by Things I never meant nor wished to say The midnight rain follows the train We all wear the same thorny crown Soul to soul, our shadows roll And I'll be with you when the deal goes down Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night When I scarcely feel the glow We learn to live and then we forgive O'r the road we're bound to go More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours That keep us so tightly bound You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies And I'll be with you when the deal goes down ...

* OZYMANDIAS I met a traveler from an antique land, Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY 1792-1822 I am frustrated by the fact that many people, including some leading politicians who privately express similar views to my own, are publicly silent. Environmentalism has become a quasi-religion. It is an ideology that shares much in common with Marxism. Climate change is the new recruiting strategy for the anti-capita...