Livingroom reflections

Been a strange day today. my son got called into the social services to talk a little, my eighteen year old son who is one of the most well-balanced individuals I know, much more stable than me for example. This is the thing:

During the summer, while my son was over in england staying with his mother, I was her alone and was running a restaurant. Now, my headchef and I were out on a bit of a bender. We had been out drinking and then we went to a party at a friends place about three in the morning. Nothing unusual so far. When we left the party at about five or five-thirty in the morning we were more than a little drunk.Nothing unusual so far. Maybe we were making a little noise I don't really know but anyway, half way home we decided to stop and sit on a doorstop, you know just chat a bit as good friends do.

Suddenly two police cars screeched to a halt in front of us, yes, two police cars. The officers got out and told us that there had been a report about two drunks fighting. We of course told them that they must be talking about someone else as we were really good friends and they then asked us if we were drunk. Yes of course we are drunk, it is five in the morning and we are just on our way home. This was the wrong answer as they then bundled us into a police car each and drove us down to the lock-up where we were locked up in a cell together(strange if they thought we were fighting) and didn't let us out untill the next afternoon. There is a law here allowing the police to lock people up if they are a danger to themselves and the ones who judge this are the police themselves....Anyway....

They were not aware that my son was in england and I was living on my own at the time and they called him in to see if he was alright or if he needed some help, actually it is just fine that they do this as long as it helps someone along the way, for me however it caused a somewhat wierd day. The letter calling him in said that they needed to talk to him with regard to me being reported to the police and this alone gave me a worried night the night before, fortunately I have both anxiety tablets and sleepers at home so I did actually get some sleep but really not a good experience. Once he got there and told them that everything at home was just fine so of course things sorted themselves out but it was just one more anxiety ridden night.

I live in a communist country which pretends not to be.

I have to get out of here.

My girlfriend just told me tonight that she has already moved to Cambodia mentally. Right now nothing could make me happier than exactly those words. Her family barely know about me yet, when she tells them that I'm taking her away to Cambodia I can only imagine what thier reaction will be. It really doesn't matter, nothing could be more important than the quest for a better life. I find it hard to imagine that so many people just accept that where they are born is where they will live, or maybe I'm just a missfit, a gypsy destined to move around from place to place. I hope I'm wrong, I really hope that I will eventually find somewhere where I really feel at home.

If I do then I think that I have found the person I want to be there with, for this I am happy.

If I don't fit in there I won't fit in anywhere, for this I am happy.

There is a light at the end of a very long tunnel, for this I am happy.


Lucien

Falling Awake

It was darktime on a friday
and the ambulances which came
might have been black

the neon lights from the stripjoints
reflect in the puddles
like oil

They mix with the blood

A strange stillness
defines the violence
people stop to look
nothing brings a crowd
like death

He lies crumpled
strangly deformed
nothing relaxes a body
like death

Was I actually watching
at that precise moment
when his body gave up?
could I have seen his soul leave
if I had just watched more closely?

This,
more than any church
makes me question.

I did not know this man
but kneeling closer to him
I can see that he is not there.

Every dead body I have seen
has left me with the same impression
the body is there
but it is empty
a vessel
just flesh and blood.

This,
more than any church
makes me question.

non sum qualis eram ( I am not such as I was)

The kind of things I have been through the last two years leave their mark on a man, I beleive that which has been said; When you go to hell and back you invariably leave a peice of yourself there. The word crisis apparently comes from latin and means to grow and develop yourself, in this case through hardship. I have not checked the source but I hope this is true, sure, I am going through a major crisis but why does this have to be negative? I will come out of of this stronger on the other side or I will collapse along the way, my aim is to become stronger and now I have help, now I have my princess. It's amazing to think that I have made it this far mostly on my own. I know an irish man here who has also been through a lot but he descended into the true depths of hell, he is an alcohol drenched shell of his former self, he did not get out in time. It may be running from problems but so what, escape is the way, I beleive the only way. I am not the man I used to be, he is still inside but he is so well hidden now that even I have trouble finding him sometimes. My irish freind is a warning.

There but for the grace of god.....

Lucien

dum spiro spero (while I breathe, I hope)

I mentioned a woman in one of my earlier entries and really need to expand upon it. I have gone and fallen in love and this is wonderful for my self-destructive tendencies, she gives me a reason to stop doing it, she allows me to trust women again and it feels great. Another thing which is cool is that when I told her I was going to move to Cambodia (this would scare off many a woman) she wants to come with me, my dream, my aim becomes ours, it couldn't be better.
Two and a half years ago another woman made sure that I would never trust again, my new princess has reversed the process. I am going to move out with her and we are going to live in a chataeu, we will write poetry and live a god shot life, maybe even have a small gallery to exhibit photographs and paintings, life can be really good, I am sure of this I've just been in the wrong place with the wrong people. It's time to do something about this, ten months is too long, I can't wait that long. My shangri-la is waiting and small time bullshit is keeping me away from it, although my princess can't move for at least 9 months, maybe I can move it forward to nine months

you are the reason

you are the rythm and the rhyme

you are dawning of days

you are so sublime

you are the light refracting

you are the stopping of time

on a friday night

you are the whisps of white

in a scorching summer sky

you are why

you are when

you are how

you are my history

my future

my now

you are the light refracting

through a freshly cut jewel

you are miles davis’ trumpet

the birth of cool

you are my space

my air

my element

my time

you are my words

my reason and rhyme.


I have a long way to go before I can consider myself in good shape again but I have a plan: I know where I want to be and I know who I want to be there with, now I just have to survive the next nine to ten months.

"dum spiro spero" while I breathe, I hope


Lucien

Thanks for the memories

I was sitting and thinking about all manor of things today and started to formulate ideas around another thoery and thought I would put it out here and see how it looked in words.

I was thinking about all the people you meet throughout your life, all of these people have memories and impressions about you and often I'm sure that these impressions are different from the ones we have about ourselves. I have lived in a few different places in my life and this means that I have a whole list of freinds and aquaintances who have totally dissapeared from my life, Do they ever think of me these days and what do they think in that case? Are their thoughts and memories postive or negative? I've thought about it quite a lot and think that these people are all important, if the people who have known you remember you in a positive way more than in a negative way then the scales will lean towards the positive. At the end of a rich and varied life then this all has to be weighed up and we should aim to be as much as possible in the positive so to speak.

I mean think about it, how does this system work with someone like Pol Pot, or Hitler or the Son of Sam? Sure they are going to be well in the negative but there will be positive too it's this which is so fascinating, there will be people who have positive memories of some of the most evil people who have ever lived. Conversly there must be negative memories of Ghandi too, even the best of people must have a skeleton or two in the closet as well.

I like the system,I'm going to refine the thing over time and will post the refinements.

Lucien.

Demons

It's two o'clock in the morning where I am.

I'm sitting alone on my sofa with a laptop on my knee, It's dark here and I'm not exactly sober at this point. The phone rang a few minutes ago but I ignored it as I didn't recognise the number, had to check it on the computer to see who it was, a girl I know with whom I had a breif fling a while ago. Sometimes I think why can't the phone just stop ringing, I dont even check my mail any more, my box is almost full. How long can I keep this up? I have to get away and escape all of this but I can't leave for at least ten months, the stress levels build up and it gets unbearable, this is why I drink or at least one of the reasons. This is the radar and I am at it's mercy, there is no-where here I can escape it. I daydream about walking along the riverside and being relaxed and free of any wories about people catching up with me, no debt collectors here will ever find me in Cambo. I need to sleep, thoughts of escape plague me all the time I'm going to take a sleeper and drop out of the world for a few hours. I've taken the ringer off the doorbell, I need to sleep.

Lucien

The opiate of the people

When was the last time you saw something good on television?

Over here television is made up of fifty percent docu-soap crap, forty percent cheaply made american imports and the rest is somewhere between ok and decent. Good is not an adjective I've been able to use for a long time while talking about television. I'ts purpose is to deaden the pain of modern living, If Marx had lived today it would have been TV which was described as the opiate of the people and not religion. It keeps us ensconsed in our modern homes for several hours every day, it keeps us controlled, it gives us things to long and work for and it pacifies us and stops us striving for more worthwhile aims.

Children in this country are now about 6 or 7 when they get their first mobile phone, when they reach 11 or twelve the same phone must also be a multi-media player and a digital camera as well. The manufacturers make mobiles which will not last more than 12 to 18 months before breaking which is just as well because by that time they are so old as to be utterly out of date anyway. I can actually watch live television on my mobile so I can combine the two things while travelling to work.

I am just as much a part of this as everyone else, I actually think it would be hard to live without my mobile, my computer, internet, my TV. I am a part of what I detest, I drive it forward with my comsumption and I do nothing to counter it. In Phnom Phenn I would still have a mobile and computer so what would change? Well I would at least get rid of the TV, I actually didn't mention computers in the first two paragraphs because this is a force for change if used correctly. At this moment I am using the computer as therapy, the internet has made the world a much smaller place. I have set myself an aim and can share the process of acheiving it or burning out on the way with anyone who cares to read about it.

Children here grow up with no knowledge or understanding of how it is to live in other less priviliged parts of the world, at the same time as computers have made the world smaller they have also made it bigger, teenage boys here now spend their time living in a virtual world instead of the real one, when I was eighteen everyone was just waiting to get out and travel I don't see this in the eighteen year olds of today. The virtual world must not be more important than the real one, although I may be wrong, maybe it's just an ecape and if so then it's probably more positive than the drink and drugs that I have myself used for the same reason.

T...
e...
l...
e...
vision

societies mission of control

out of control

it's been a naughty boy

spewing out crap about the american dream

spawning mind control, buy our ice cream

do what we want every day

think what we want you to think

in everyway

'cause you're a mindless

gormless fool.

Why do you think that we sent you to school

to be educated?

no.

to learn the ways we want you to behave

thats why we sent the rich ones to the other schools

so they wouldn't have to mix

with the kind of fools

they'd be controlling

in later life

grow up, get a job, choose a wife

and be content

and know the shit you take

is all well-meant

'cause we like yer

we really do

'cause the graft of the many benefits the few

'cause we get richer from the sweat of your brow

and you get poorer

and let me tell yer how

'cause there's interest

on the money we lend yer

then thers taxes

on the bills we send yer

you're in a circle

and yer cant get out

yer need a car just to get about

but then then theres road tax

and the R.A.C

and insurance

and the M.O.T

it's all money you 'avnt got

you're living you're life without a pot

to piss in

you're aiming to survive

but quite frankly you're missing

but theres an answer

go home

switch on your telly

put up yer feet

and turn yer mind to jelly

no need to think

just look

absorb all the messages and dont give a fuck

a new religion

just need to switch on

and you're there

no need to care

T...
e...
l...
e...
vision.




Lucien