WTF?

I cannot count the times

                                                           I have driven past this image

and wondered why a

shoe company

is selling perfume to 

women who look like men

without feet

when in reality 

they should be selling 

shoes to women who look like women

with feet

or perhaps I am just tragically

behind the times.

merry go round

busy busy busy

every day there is no time

or perhaps there's too much

now is the only reality

but how to access the now?

no expectations

no plans

no memory 

dont look, see

coptic cross or cryptic crossword

meaning is hidden or proscribed

either search for it or you can buy a package

just have faith, here take this pill

or just have a drink, 

and another, and another

and the veil of truth tantalisingly close 

with a glass

diss-appears into the bottle

a genie that sits there 

waiting to be let out again.

habit obscures experience

old replaces the new

or becomes it

unless..

the water is very cold

and you dunk yourself

in the ocean 

a sink for emotion

a sharp intake of breath

icy skin

clear eyes and 

finally clarity.

voted off the island

you never miss your water till your well runs dry

you better count your chickens

it was the straw that broke the camels back

it is the weakest link in the chain

everyday we utter these phrases

and although we are aware of the meanings

their import remains remote

buried under overuse and cliche

well today I realised the meaning of the weakest link

I had to ride to work

having been a good citizen

and leaving my car at the X

after having a few last night

I had miss-placed the garage clicker

and the only accessible bike

was my sons "old school"

BMX

now I thought

sure the pedals are short

and I'm gonna have to do more exercise

but I'll get to work on time right?

wrong!

a hundred meters from my house 

with 5km to go

my folly became apparent

bike too small, seat too low, progress to slow

I soldiered on

got to centennial park

where the chain came off.

10 times

closer inspection of the chain revealed

you guessed it

a separating link

and I had to stop

every 200m

to bash the chain against the closest metal object

and close the link.

(my kingdom for a set of pliers)

made it to work 

covered in grease

sweating profusely

with a bad headache from an

ill fitting cap.

a 25 minute ride

transformed into 45 minutes

and that was just the beginning

of a shitty day at work.

and all because of the weakest link

schrodinger's cat

lying in the early dawn

talking about dreams

yogagirl asked me what i knew about quantum physics

"not much" i replied

"the particle and wave duality"..

"oh that yeah sure"

matter is either one or the other or both

to determine which it is dictates the outcome

which got me thinking of definitions

and associations, boxes and identification

the recent riots and chest beating

the differences in religious ideology

and the driving underlying separateness

of identification

why if we are all made of matter

do we need to be different?

why if we are all the same

do we need to box ourselves 

and restrict our thought patterns and action

to a violent expression

of our miss-placed separateness?

and the deeper you think about it

we only believe what we learn or are told

what we experience or what resonates with us.

but what resonates with us may be different

to what resonates with others.

there is no right or wrong

only what we believe to be so

and then to distill it

what really matters?

and all this while swimming 

up and down the pool

beats counting to 20 

I suppose.

the flow

lying there in the early dawn after another dreamy night

i had a profound thought

its all about the flow.

thinking of life and how it moves.

thinking about situations and people and how they dont.

thinking about positive and negative

energy

emotion

thought.

thinking about a rock in a river

and how it disrupts the flow

and in doing so splits the water

energy

emotion

thought

and creates eddies and stasis in its wake.

think about someone you know who is stuck

rigid, inflexible, unhappy, 

addicted to the pain of the present

or whatever...

how very zen

if life is a river what are you fighting against?

which leads me in a roundabout way to being woken at 2 or 3 or 4

every night for the past 3 weeks

by a child, a dream, a noise or whatever?

somebody recently said that in august there was something big going on

in the solar system (man...)

that would be interrupting sleep patterns

and the flow

what is it?

beautiful fucking day!

yesterday morning 

after the madness of waking at 3am 

and drugging myself back to the land of nod

after my son waking me at 6.30 

and asking inanely if i wanted to jump on the trampoline

after a brief check of the faculties and 

finding mr temazepam was still in residence.

i thought if i was any more relaxed i'd be asleep

and then wondered why i wasn't.

the day was shaping fine

my fabulous wife came back from yoga looking energetic

my beautiful son and daughter woke looking like brady-bunch extras

and in a flurry of activity they were gone

to school. 

the house was quiet 

just the dog and I

the day was warm, like mid summer

the day was clear, like mid winter

and i thought delightful day for a swim.

so we went down to the ocean.

Coogee was a millpond, crystal clear and inviting.

hang on, i thought to myself

the only person swimming is in a steamer.

and there's only one of them.

i approached the water and dipped a toe in

the toe froze. and gave me pause for thought...

how cold could it really be?

i'll just have a quick dip

as my body entered the water 

before the freeze hit my brain 

i thought i'd better not swim out to far, or i'll drown.

how long does hypothermia take to set in?

my head was under the ice floe for three seconds

and i felt like a kid who's just eaten too much ice-cream

the swim lasted 20 seconds

and felt like an hour.

but when i emerged shivering into the warmth of the spring day

my body tingling with the stimulation

i walked back up the hill and felt alive

in a way that i hadn't before

mr temazepam had left the building

and i went to work.

beautiful fucking day!

at 4 am

and so 

for the fourth time this week 

i am awake before the sun...

well before the sun. 

only today i'm not working so i dont really care 

whether i go back to sleep or not

and with that thought in mind i can stare at the screen

listen to the water filter through the fish tank

in bed ten minutes ago

in between the time

half asleep, half awake

i became aware of many things

the cat snoring - as usual

my wife breathing - thank god

the dog dreaming of electric cats

and the morning birds

out there in the dark

calling to one another

a whippoorwill or minor

or kookaburra 

the silence reveals much

about the things

which are hidden in daily life

but are always there

at 4am

the sound of silence

according to wikipedia silence is the relative lack of audible sound.
so there you have it, at the outset i'm lying.

i can hear my wife softly breathing beside me as i type
the tapping of the keys competing for her breath

but the fine buzz in my ears the background to it all
and i wonder if i am ever in silence
or just fooling myself
again.