WHat now?

At some time in our present, each of us will stand on the brink of the future and wonder: “What now?”

It’s not surprising we cannot answer the question. Sure, we can ponder, wonder, imagine, endeavour to predict, but most will realise the futility of such a preponderant misdirection of our thoughts. The future does not yet exist. Our imagination might want to take us there but it can only guess. Our consideration might determine some probability or possibility but the coin may fall either way. Only the past and present have any surety.

We are here in this moment as a result of what has happened before. We are as a result of all the decisions we have taken. We exist in the very best outcome of all the decisions we have made. We cannot change what is just as we cannot wind back the clock. We might consider where we are and consider it is not where we want to be but that cannot be changed. Nor can we expect to change our lives as if we are in control of a destiny; as if we steer the ship and divert its path.

All we can do is consider possibilities. And follow the course of action step by step with a willingness to assess the present in the light of our actions. If we are not where we want to be we have only two alternatives; we accept where we are or we deny our responsibility.

If we have accepted we can re-assess and alter our actions or we can allow those forces set in place to continue to see where they take us. Either way, there will always be an outcome which satisfies the actions taken.

For the love of art

Picasso, what's to understand?

It's paint, plastered to a wall 

Some history, a question of its meaning

I don't understand at all.

Pollack, what's that all about?

Monet, perhaps or Dega 

The women were so fat back then

lunch is down the hall

whimsical Whitely, Dali's moustache

Comical cartoons

staring

Staring.

He stares back through pearls and marble

Green, cantered with his black soul

His teeth clench, drenched in the sweat

Of labour, of living, of longing.

Now his hair is faded, skin weathered

Scars of Sun and sins.

A hand reaches across his face

Touching his lips as if to taste

The words he endeavours to make.

The stains of days sticks to his attire 

Stretched by the belly that once held fire

No longer with the gait of youth

The step of defiance, the stamina sustained 

And in his footsteps strides relief

Of one path followed, one ideal swallowed.

This is what I see. Only I know

What tethers beneath.

The wedge that drives purpose

From insanity.

In our own shell, we still fail

In knowing who stares back

When we are alone.

An ant crosses my path. Small and black as it is, it seems to know what it is doing, walking the top edge of my iPad as I write, taking note of everything that is before it.

I wonder how much awareness an ant has, how much cognition, how much understanding of its world it bares witness to. I seem to be more aware of it that it of me, yet we go about our daily routine with the same energy and determination; I with my incapacity to figure out what the fuck I'm doing here and it, seeming totally capacitances, looking for food, sex and safety. Then again, maybe we are both on the same search but with different perspectives and priorities. It and I seem to share a rather stunned and haphazard approach to our existence.

I don't know what the perspective of an ant might be but I'm sure it's a simple one. Humans on the other hand seem to put in more of an effort. Life is complicated, as they say.

The  ant wanders back and forth for a while. I watch it extend its antennae and delicately raise itself on its hind legs as if in performance to a song for an unknown audience. Communication between ants is silent. They produce pheromones that diffuse quickly and extend far and wide. Other ants detect these molecules and react accordingly. My senses are oblivious to any odour beyond the sweat and grime of the tropics and a curry cooking in the distance. The simplicity of intermolecular communication seems simple enough for ants. Why can't it be that simple for humans? Why do we continually complicate communication with innuendo, half truths, semantic gymnastics and, worst of all, the unspoken word? What would an ant say if it could speak? I ask the ant. It says nothing, which says it all, really. I’m often ignored by ants and other organisms.

I brush the ant from my iPad and watch it scurry under the table and down a crack in the floor. Whenever I leave the house for an extended period of time, invertebrates take over. Worms at the front door, dehydrated and stuck to the tiles, penetrate through a gap in the security screen, especially designed by the builder to keep worms  and the like, out. Beetles from the front gardens annual hatching squeeze between the louvres into the front rooms. They scurry for shelter behind framed pictures of Italy. Is this the way they experience other worlds? Spiders spin webs in every conceivable corner of the house. 

Cockroaches have abandoned the garden leaf litter and made for the space behind the refrigerator, only to be disappointed with the lack of food normally found in abundance on the kitchen floor after a bout of cooking. A family of geckos has hatched and left the egg shells between the coffee mugs. Their food supply has been guaranteed over the last 4 weeks of my absence and they have grown fat on the harvest of invading invertebrates. I nuke the house with toxins from a red can labelled ‘Non-Toxic and Non-irritant.’ I assume that’s for my peace of mind. Not all invertebrate phyla could be identified as I suck up the remains with the Dyson. Each movement across the floor is delivered with a rather whistful sweep of my right arm and an interesting dance step recently invented during a dream sequence with Nicole Kidman. Not that I like Nicole or have any sexual desires on her person but I do find her a more than suitable dance partner during a romantic illusion. 

The Man with the Camera

Everything changes

We are all in a. Instant state of flux

Look away for a moment

There will be something you missed

as i sleep

 As I sleep

As I sleep

I hear the creep of footsteps 

Distant past, close at heart.

No shadows cast.

Something just ahead 

Calls and calls again

The weight of my body

Holds me slack

My tongue knots

Screaming back

No consolation 

From the gathering crowd

Familiar yet not.

Then

Silence.

I stare into the space above

Drowning 

Light pushes me deeper

To waking.

Who am I to walk in such places?

Old faces, strange spaces.

To which there is no return.

 

From the window adjacent to my drawing table I can watch the lizards doing what lizards do. I can’t imagine what it would be to be a lizard (not that I haven’t tried). What I do recognise is some sense of awareness; of me when I approach too closely, of other lizards who occupy a similar territory, of what is food and what is not, of temperature, of light, and of things I could not imagine. Each lizard seems to have a simple life. Eat, rest, drink, move, shelter, reproduce, fight and retreat. The territory is held by one dominant male. Garry (my name for him) is near ten years old. He has fathered many, eaten some, competed with ambitious males, fought off intruders, shows no affection to his offspring, shares nothing: he is as independent a specimen as I could imagine. And yes, I do imagine.

Garry demonstrates no emotional qualities. His feelings are limited to that which are necessary for his survival. His are the basic senses we all have: thermal, olfactory, taste, auditory, visual, pressure, proprioseptivity.

I don’t know whether Garry cares, loves, hates, feels loss, pleasure, even fear. In his typical non-descript  pose he gives nothing away. Among his kind he is understood. Yet there seems to be a prescribed course of action predetermined or reactionary, standardised in evolution, aimed at survival.

I might attach some human feelings and emotions to him by his actions and circumstances but since I have no idea what’s going on in his brain I can only assume I am hypothercising.

Peculiarly enough, we do the same with other humans, cats, dogs, most furry animals, and a few odd creatures we might admire or keep as pets. Adopting another species as a human substitute is characteristically human. It’s more likely we are behaving more like the other species than they us. Have you seen the way people behave around their dogs? Ech! One might wonder who is in charge with pets and people.

All this watching and pondering as led me to request that I come back as a lizard. That should suit me nicely for my next round at living.