Escape the Orderly

 

 

Travel is an opportunity to escape the gravitational pull of an otherwise ordinary life. People become mundane with age and experience. I’m no different. Age is unrelenting, schedules dehumanizing. Humans collect. The stuff we collect whether material or metaphysical brands us, makes who we are, binds us. Regardless of age, we get ‘stuffy‘.  You may as well get a tattoo, it’s that obvious.

Who and what you are is your Hellespont when escape becomes the only rational alternative. Reach a certain age and everyday life is like an albatross around your neck. Travel is like alcohol, making life better under the influence. Survival demands we travel. Travel is my heroin. Airports, a crack pipe to the addict, a temple for the weary.

“Does travel make you more interesting , or is life more interesting because you travel?” I framed that question as an intentional paradox. Is it order or disorder which causes a person to walk away from everything and seek the oblivion of travel?  Don’t we always say, “We’ll leave it all behind“? Select cultures and religions meditate into the void for various reasons of necessary solitude. Poverty is a common thread. Why westerners seek to experience the poverty of others is another topic.

The Third World is clustered with Houses of the Holy rooted in longstanding communities. Westerners are rootless and mobile, and so find temples spiritually attractive. Less affluent people of impoverished countries seek temple denizens for answers and solace, affluent westerners build airports and seek out the nontrinitarian wisdom of on-line travel agencies. Travel is a rich people thing. Air B&B a quasi-religion. Heaven is first class. Hell is a middle seat in economy.

I’m one of the worst examples. I own a home, in a rich and peaceful country. I don’t live there, it’s full of stuff. It’s used as a family pied a terre for temporary visits,  sometimes years apart. I just paid another annual property tax bill for services I never use. It’s a very nice home, I choose not to live there. I’ve been infected by the travel bug. It’s in my bones. My country bores me to death. My house is a time capsule buried under a mountain of memories.

My wife/life partner/soul mate and I are on vacation. That’s what we say when we fill out forms. That’s an over simplification and ridiculous fabrication. The vacation we’re on stretches over a decade, never ending. Am I a traveler or an ex-patriot internet navigator? Is this travel or hybrid undefined lifestyle? The country I currently live in treats me like a guest. They make it abundantly clear that we have a short term relationship, at best. Am I homeless? This is a “first world problem“. What do we call this state of flux ? “Affluenza?

I don’t consider myself a ‘digital nomad’…they congregate. Sweaty children making advance reservations to work in organized rooms is not my idea of travel. I started traveling to get away from the ugliness of order. I avoid organized travel like the plague. No cruise ships or bus tours for me. I’m not structured that way. Instead, my travel partner is an accomplished bakery scientist. She creates what drives me to run because I’m insatiable. I write Free Verse poetry because I’m a disorganized mind and rarely think of words that rhyme. This is how we escape order in an overly organized world. Vita Brevis Est.

 

Escape from order:

Stop reading, start listening, keep moving

Risk garbage falling into the deepest recess of your soul

Disappointing, angelic

I punched my ticket long ago

So, who the fuck are you…really?

My mind runs free

If I get any crazier they’ll nail me to a tree

A nontrinitarian Tau Cross preferably

I eat terrifying memories

The die is cast

I might live forever, but I have doubts

I wrote about Nephalim

Brought them back to life

They’d been forgotten

By all but a few

Little Richard died today

He was like a taxi dancer to my generation

loved and reviled

I died in 1969 when

I met someone

She walked the street, a paid attraction

She read my mind

One of many spirits speaking through my eyes at the time

Suicide was never an option, so I saved her

That jagged edge we walked

When you can’t stand your own mind

Love dreams, dead words

Stolen treasure, ashes in your hand

Escaping energy and light

 

 

 

Rockabilly Ramble

I heard stories about you

None of them good

That turned me on

The way you danced backstage

Blew my top

You hide yourself at great expense

 

They said you had a cabin in the wood

I heard you always dressed in black leather

I long to feel what love can bring

I’m a junkie for that adrenaline shot

Can I take you at your word

 

Rockets burn, this photograph

My heart runs wild

Love has been forgotten by all but a few

It’s been a hell on earth for me

Waiting to meet someone like you

 

 

Element and Fiction

 

I’m not a lonely man, I prefer to be alone

I wear a straight-jacket under my clothes

To protect me from myself

I fete a priest with style but reject the House of God

Negligible man, elemental fiction

Brutal fight to the death, a mating dance

Stuff your ears with moonstone dust

Only fools divine the future

 

It must have been the sixties that wrung the life out of me

She looks into empty sockets where eyes used to be

For the briefest moment I’m not myself,  life seems worth living

It brings us to our knees, we shout ‘Hallelujah’

The rain came

War unstoppable

I’m not a lonely man

Elements and fiction

 

I punched my ticket long ago

If I get any crazier, tie me to a tree

I got what I wanted, by then I’d set it free

A dead poet said ” Boy you’d better think twice”

You only have one shot, then they bury you in ice

Elemental fiction

From some forgotten hack

 

I’m not a lonely man

I’ve been down this road before

I’d trade it for forgiveness

Abstinence is dead

Trafficking in souls unwise

I am a complacent prisoner if loneliness prevails

This can never change, it’s in my DNA

 

I scream in my sleep

Ghosts and madness comes my way

I wear an amulet

I’m letting you know

Shoot me before sundown

Chain me to wall in China where such things aren’t forbidden

Bind me with a spell

I’ve worshiped many temple gods, something might have stuck

Who knows what form my manifest madness will arrive

 

I’m not a lonely man

Just prefer to be alone

Compose a requiem

I have memories from 1349

Eidetic recall is a curse

Birth was terrifying, I remember striking back

Elemental

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Far-Forgotten

‘El Rey’

Time flies

Incantatory poets lash out

Rebellious tongues

Unplugged

Flowers , summer

Something stirs

 

Spoken truth to power

Righteous , transitory

Peace, love, sex, children led to slaughter

Freedom lied

Changing everything

A desperate ache to return there

 

Pale rider

Cryptic unknown

Faded denim packed away

The holiday is over

Hope entangled, confused… lost

Inside Pandora’s Box

World spins, carelessly

 

Winter-fall unwelcome

A dusting of snow

Far-forgotten, distant , a signal whistle pipes up, the last breath of homeless air escapes

Staring silent, sullen, clouded

Rear view mirror blurred

Driving, one eye open, barely conscious

Childish flirtation, with death

 

A psalm , a bird in flight, catches your attention

Weep as it passes, a life unlived

A road untraveled

Far-forgotten , guiding compass, pole star shifts, strange vortex

Left behind

Stragglers fly across frozen space

Emptiness altered

Bright stars disappear, tragedy

Others reappear, like magic

 

A dashboard clock spins relentlessly backwards

Destiny unfurled

Lived in reverse, life is understood

Lucid flash bulb clear

Outran a bullet

There’s folly for you

 

A carousel, gaudy colors reflected

Raucous laughter, patio lights twinkle

Trickery,  carnival calliope illusion

Muse abandoned

A time machine

 

Prisoners trumpet the coming of light

Blindingly obvious, though it remains a mystery

Restraint untethered

Buckle loosed, cannon fire and rockets

Unknown promise, distant bounty

Energy spent, lingering regret

 

Resurrection, redemption, rebirth, reanimation

Imagine, more questions

Awakening , expectations

A tiger whip… crack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No fool like a Corona Pandemic fool

I’m dissapointed, but not surprised, when an outburst of stupidity is published in my favorite media travel section. This state of flux is not unusual or unique to me. Most rational persons give their heads a shake when one of our ‘fellow travelers‘ does something particularly asinine. I read the travel sections offerings every day to stay current. I follow certain editors work religiously. Rick Steeves is a hero. Over many years I’ve informed myself on the finer points of destination travel, safety and etiquette. I’d like not to be thought of as an ugly tourist when I arrive at my destination.

I am surprised however at the supportive sensationalist media given to persons who write home complaining of Corina Virus hardship , often self-induced. Seriously though, commencing travel in the midst of a global pandemic might be the definition of ‘travel stupidity’. Anyone spending as much time , effort and money as it takes to travel these days should at least educate themselves, keep abreast of the latest goings on in the destinations they plan on traversing. Make an effort to stay in the game. Corona Virus should not have caught anyone by surprise.

However, when the average ‘letter to the editor‘ starts with “Help us, we’re stranded in XYZ and can’t get home“, I lose patience. Text follows detail how, after being made well aware, well in advance, of current and present dangers regarding travel bans, embargoes, delays, cancellations, forced quarantines etc etc ad nauseum, they decided to travel anyway, with disastrous consequences. It isn’t just ‘Corona Virus’ that a traveler might encounter, it’s the plethora of heath and safety issues that have existed long before the traveler exits the bubble of an aircraft. This should be all part of having done your ‘travel homework’, prior to departure.

“Why won’t the Government send a repatriation rescue team to save us?” Also not surprising is some of the far flung bug infested hostels, near inaccessible hell holes, that people travel to. It’s a pet theory of mine that Canadians in particular choose the cheapest places on the planet to travel to because of a weak national currency. They simply can’t afford nice things. The Forex quote today on USD/CAD is $1.43… not good. At least be aware of the clear and present dangers of travel and don’t think ‘it won’t happen to me’.

I’m not picking on the fringe traveler backpacking across Peru seeking the thrill of high altitude, or the drug therapy initiate in the Amazonian jungle wanting a wild psychoactive Ayuhuasca high. They’re a small cohort compared to the  hundreds of thousands of cruise ship passengers and Great Wall Bus Tour clients ( to name a few) who advanced while Corona Virus was raging, and decided to go anyway. It’s not as though the pandemic hadn’t been thoroughly advertised.

My thoughts on this are as follows:

‘If you’ve decided to travel to some far flung third world disaster where access is limited and health facilities non-existent, then isn’t it your fault?”. Is that too harsh? Are some people genuinely born so entitled they should be saved from their own ignorance? Do you not read the limitations on your travel insurance policy? C’mon…seriously ? I watch the news every day like every one else. You couldn’t not know that cruise ships were being turned away from some ports, quarantined in others and still others stranded at sea like flotsam.

It isn’t like it’s a secret that motorcycle scooter accidents in Bali kill more non-sober British tourists than any other vacation spot on Earth. Everyone should knows about health insurance and policy limitations…malaria and dengue precautions, caution against dangerous activity, about river flukes swimming into exposed pee holes and embedding themselves with horrible effect. Why don’t more people take these things seriously?

The Carnival Princess sat lashed to a remote wharf in Japan while hundreds of Corona Denial passengers were sickened through contact, close quarters and bad ventilation, and many died. You have to ask yourself ‘why would anyone keep to their reservation’, as thousands did, only to die by the dozens cruise ships in the same time frame. So what if the cruise line wasn’t offering immediate refunds, isn’t that fight a lawyers job? In retrospect isn’t life more important than a refund or cruise credit?

Why do all these people risk their lives and others forfeit theirs. Ditto to every other travel ‘horror story‘ of naive or entitled persons who, on the promise of glossy periodicals or on the strength of a passport, leave the safety of home and thrown caution to the wind to travel into naturally dangerous environments only to find themselves ‘stranded’ and worse. We can only hope that better days lay ahead when great travel editors are also great educators.

 

 

 

I’m tired of listening to words that rhyme.

Fifty days into the Corona Lockup.

Thirty one years married to the only person who’d have me,  our honeymoon intact.

‘Still in love‘ is a compliment to my wife.

“Opposites attract'” , she’ll say. We met and love burst like a house on fire.

I am out-of-time, archaic, antipodean, lost in profit leaning research on the opposite side of the world.

Kinetic time spins independently of my preference.

‘She‘ is introverted, happily isolated in science, learning new programming languages on a yoga mat.

Brick by brick I build a distant fortress, she talks to aliens.

I’m tired of listening to words that rhyme. Instead we float on a river of cool jazz. It swirls… and ebbs like cream tripping down marble halls. I can’t sit long, nowhere to go.

Music divines each next burst of synaptic surprise. Jazz, a psychoactive drug for the sober mind, a light at the end of the tunnel, unreachable, unknowable until a journeys done.

The view , fantastic,  panoramic windows inspire.

Every time we think about moving we’re drawn back to those windows and that view and wonder where we’d go?

That concrete sea spills off the horizon still reveals hidden secrets. A canal that inexplicably changes color every day, green, black and silver.

Golden temple spire glows sunset red.

I still dream .