Dear English, With Love

Dear English,

They try to take you from me, but I know what is true. I don't prefer an easier path, an idiot's paradise, or a collar to wear around the neck. I can of course accept that there will never be one version of anything, there will always be suitors, and nor should there be such limitations that mean one source monopolises territory. That would only lead to darkness, in my opinion. It is the overthrowing, the seedy infiltrations, the manipulation that causes people to be crushed underfoot or brainwashed.

I love you, English. People can come and go, rip you apart, but you will stand proud, kick and scream, and fight back. You will never vanish, as they desire. Without you they are nothing, how blind not to see it. Oh, I pity the ones with a lack of appreciation, for the womb, the tongue, the graveyard. All these things a part of us. They came from here, they desert their roots, they live without love, and they blacken the lightest of corners.

You are I, and I owe you something. You are worth fighting for. I would take on an army far outnumbering myself, as it is correct to believe, regardless of the odds. You to I are beautiful, never letting go, a flower that never ceases to be, and grow, and blossom. Forgive those who attempt to damage you, as we must forgive those who simply need control. Forgive them their shortcomings, they miss a magic so few truly observe, and the loss is theirs, know it or not. 

I am not an English language warrior. They may see me that way. I don't want to inflict my version on everyone, as others do, but I certainly admire your resilience, English, despite what the giant companies from other shores are trying to do to you. I want to protect you, as a precious and beautiful version of a malleable and marvellous language. I want to convey with some love what you are capable of. I want to make people think about the ability to communicate in an artful and unique way. Evolution become us, but when they attempt to steamroller you, via the media, via the largest companies on the globe, they alienate me further. For I can think my own thoughts. I can question what they are force feeding me. They correct the way I spell things, falsely believing themself to be superior. They are certainly not above me. Oh, perhaps they should have a file on me for making such a preposterous suggestion. I will stand up to them. My language deserves that. They are wrong to force me. They have no power over me. I will resist them all the way. I thank them, for making me certain, more than ever, for proving my values to be strong and showing me the masses are almost never, ever right.

With love,

Your Faithful Servant

Swamp Is Calling

Swamp calling, go running. At the knees, at the very least. If it sucks you in deeper, pray for liberation. Strummerville. A place that follows me everywhere. There is so much upstairs, it is frightening, utterly frightening. I'm not here, this isn't me. We've been here before.

When the curtain falls, somehow it opens again, and the sunlight comes in. We shouldn't be surprised. I can hear the dripping drops. They never seem to know how to stop, like clocks, entering the consciousness, a feeling they might never leave once inside. The swamp, it is calling. Perhaps I want to listen. It's hard not to. There are those with direction and purpose and passion, there are those who are mechanoids, robotic and programmed. Who knows what is right. Alas, the search for something deeper continues. I have a feeling some answers can be found in the swamp here.

Storytelling

I wouldn't ask you to lie to me, but tell me a story, grab hold of me tightly with some words worth following. It is obvious that many lies drop from tongues, or even fly off them like bullets. The fact of the matter is that lies are a part of our lives, whether we like it or not. Now, storytelling is a completely different matter. Tell me a tale, mask the sadness beneath your veil of words, and perhaps lift me from my own sorrow. Embellish something, rather invent some complex and beautiful web of events that could only really fascinate the listener and wake them from their dreary day.

Imagine grandpa in a rocking chair, with grandchild on his knee. The story he mesmerises his little loved one with is not always true. For how could such a man possibly have done all of those things? So, yes, some of them were real stories that grandpa has fetched from the darkest recesses of his mind, but some are entirely invented. Inventions inspired by love and magic. This is not to lie, this is to carve some beauty for the eager and open ears of the child. Storytelling is inspirational. It can help the mind of a child or anyone to blossom and feel a sense of wonder that perhaps little else can. Somehow, storytelling often feels like the greatest truth on this earth, in such an age as we find ourselves in. Think of a tale to tell each other, something grand and majestic, to make the little hairs stand up, to make the brain feel a short, sharp shock, and to water the seeds of ideas in the minds of us all. If you only just tell a story, not only do you create something incredible, but you overwhelm the lies, and watch your invention become as real as anything else ever was or is likely to be.


* Do not fail to understand the difference between 'lies' and 'storytelling.' I can understand that there may be some confusion, but believe me, they are two totally different things.

I Am Somebody Else

When I am somebody else my treasured part is sleeping. I want to say always waiting for my return, but someone else is probably passing through the tunnels that perhaps I should be. If I am another, then another must be I, no? Learn to play roles in this life we must. Some of them fit better than others. For now, I realise the need to slip into a different jacket, play another man, and reap the benefits of a strange new direction.

I can be an actor only for so long. It doesn't run through me, but from walking in another's shoes I feel like we develop a greater understanding of our own selves. I feel closer to that mark than ever, but there is always room for mistakes. There are moments when it all feels like running out, a man, battling the days, running low on motivation, little in the tank, almost at the end. Sometimes though, you feel like a warrior forever.

We should enjoy the challenge of filling somebody else's shoes. There is the hope you do not disappoint, but once you have dived into the pool all you can do is swim, to the best of your abilities. Magical powers in other areas do not exist there, so you must kick and move your arms, and the desire will see you carve a neat line through the water. Once you have reached the other side you can look back on the victory, assess your achievement, and learn from your errors. It all means greatness, as long as when you return to being yourself again, you bring with you the brick that can build the palace. Yes, each lesson, each new situation, each challenge can reward us with a brick. These bricks are the foundation and then beautiful body of the palace of our victory and love throughout life.

We try to build a palace. For we can do no more.

City Lights

So, here I am in a capital again, giant buildings wheeling all around me, growing upwards as I write. Well, I wonder what goes on inside those buildings, what great and ugly events are taking place, even now. Who is growing the buildings here, for I can see they are being watered? Some people are on auto pilot, some are cruising the streets with leisurely footsteps, absorbing the sights, the pavements, or blindly following the tourist trail. There is much going on here, to inspire, to provoke thoughts and to symbolise the essence of life in a city. It is interesting to watch people’s behaviour; I am watching them, but also heading somewhere myself. I have my own reasons behind each step I take. They fuel some great fire. 

When the curtain of darkness falls the city is lit up. It takes on another face. Dark magic finds the corners and attempts to infiltrate the uncorrupted rooms. Regardless of the face there is much beauty to admire. Déjà vu comes to find me, tracks me down. There are moments where you feel more than familiar, others when I am lost in your reaching maze, a labyrinthine heart. The way the glorious and gruesome pass me by, the way the accents and languages fill the air, and the way I see faces like robotic works of art. I can hear the pulse of the city, dictating, blowing, guiding, and softening the hardships around the corner.

I arrived in your arms, such an approach. I am for you and you are what I make of you. I close eyes and see it all before me. Love is not seen, as much as it is experienced, retained and felt at the very core of a being. The city lights me up, and I am a blossoming creature once more.

Tides

You would think they would follow some pattern, but they do not. When you need something to depend on, they do not come. It is the art of expectation measured against reality, the way tides have a mind all of their own. There is always such quietness that works itself into a storm. It has nowhere else to go. The eternity before released in a moment.

Life, the rollercoaster, ever edging us closer to the precipice. What are we afraid of? That's easy, always the unknown. So little we know, yet such fear of broadening the existential palate (or even the palette). There are answers in words, there are treasures well hidden, but how can they be uncovered if fear conquers us before we have even started? It is not to find answers, but to ask questions that mean we are searching and we exist not wracked by fears, or at least not letting them rule over us.

When the next wave comes will you be ready for what it brings? You are sat waiting, perhaps you are ill-prepared, on the other hand, you might be plotting and scheming how best to take advantage when finally it comes, and if it's worth riding to some other destination. There is little like clockwork though, and even that fails after some time. Time lashes the whip on us, over and over, blessing us, cursing us, asking questions of how we live our days.

Until The End

One day we will all be bears. I could see it happening, if I access the hopeful sector of my mind. If you give up your dreams, you've lost everything. Reality has no meaning, for sure, just bricks in a wall of the days. When people brandish you a 'dreamer,' why does it feel like they mean to insult you, for they are actually paying you the ultimate compliment. Different minds are different ball games, some of us juggle, some of us watch the balls disappear down holes that are left laying everywhere.

Until the end, or the eternal peculiar, beyond all the faces of hope. Shadows fall on us all, but light also returns to haunt us. Nobody knows about the length of the chapters until they have been written and read and absorbed. All of us go, some blindly, some know, into the chapters of life. Watching from windows and hollowed out trees, watching as movements go by. It is cinematic here, through this pane. I hope it doesn't hurt you to be on the other side. Nothing is lost as long as it is remembered.