take a seat beside this old typewriter, its alpha-beta bones

scraping time wall-to-wall, pendulating looseleaf thoughts

brought about by a newmoon escaping my windowsill,

footprints from angels unstrung from their perches,

come sit and hear the regrets of a theif who steals

blood from the limb of pen and skin of paper,

who plasters a diction of this cracking nortal mortar.

this pulp of mother, these flaming wasted papers

spinning in their descent to wastecan, the pen framing

lifes measures without a steady beat, the roots of hope

which grew too deep, stealing the fruits from public life

to hide off alone and peel their skins, keeping count

of the census of senses, this regret, of having to leash

a career, this regret, of knowing free time has small limits,

and this typewriter, the role of a mediator, the whip

in the slaves hand, a small frame by which to escape anywhere.

EDIT OF ABOVE

take a seat next to this old iron typewriter, its alpha-beta bones

slapping wetly away on paper, my looseleaf thoughts being outlined and broadcast

into shadows of ink, serif footprints of ideas unstrung. hear my regrets

with linear symbols pushing out as flames, and tomorrow they are heaped on the desk,

a dusty coalheap of moments left to be scattered by the fans breeze,

this typewriter without electric is my discipline, a whip stolen by a slave

and used on himself to see what welts rise from within.

i am only an organism, sometimes that thought alone for hours makes me smile,

this living collection of organs and organisms sticking together like rice,

bumping into other collections at crosswalks, sliding along the rim

of this magnetic petri dish. i imitate mannerisms, trade currencies,

labor in order to persist, how much is enough security,

how much love till i burst, what remaining parts of my life

is more mechanical than emotional, and how do i divide my time i offer to others.

the palm beach mall, an old chrome vaccum sucking crumbs in the food court hallway,

the music of a single speaker at a discount clothing store,

piss colored water splasing, pennies in the fountain, a too-thin janitor bent,

eating over a too-large fish&chips, many stores cardboarded and 'for lease'

in florida hot-pink fonts on whitewashed storefronts, the comparison

of fingernail color gossip on benches, giggled whispered conversations by cellphone

all rushing past like retail meteors, one cinema with 3 movies for one dollar,

old sneakers sprayed with simulated butter scent, 'no spitting nor boomboxes',

the rules repeat every 300 feet, expendable, batteries, colored sugar coats,

bacon, checkerboards, never enough lysol, the mementos of malls.

the retreat to creature within the machine, needing constant holes poked through

in order to improve circulation of emotions, internal electronic pied-piper of muzak

as sleep wraps around warm coats, no internal conflicts that idle time brings,

waves which reach no shore, meditate, meditate, then back to the drawing board.

i crouch on a beach 9am friday, far from phone, unreachable and at peace,

mans communication tries to sneak past god, to always grab our attention

away from the moment at hand. theres a tune to every seashell,

no matter how fractured a piece, together whipped about, tripping on their feet,

each wave and they all laugh. i am at the beach with only paper, pen,

and attention to no defining details and the day passes unleashes, unburdened,

no matter the attention and study i give to each second each one gets away.

every moment begins with i wish, ends with i had,

if only i had a memory before the action,

a perception of impact before the collision.

no matter how weak the rhythm of life,

there are still words to the song to keep afloat and not drown,

in midst of this period of no horizons.

i watch myself, an awkward walk,

how fragile i imagine my actions, a painter who breathed fumes of his paint,

every moment binding memories in imperfect angles together, none can i dismount,

every emotion pulled thin between conception and unconciousness,

the 'something' behind this physical universe always sneaks around me,

i cannot turn around fast enough to claim a meaning,

by the time i know what is happening, and why,

it has become a part of the waterlogged past,

and if i dont write it down i will forget.

talking of travel is dreaming of living,

spiritual gravity towards that which we hope to feel,

i am always talking of who i was, but who i am is this man frozen,

too long in one stale town, wrapped up in life converted to numbers,

i jump and push and rip at the gel around me,

but this fluid confusion is critically fused to my nervous system,

i am weakened more, wounded trying to puncture times thickness.

i am either dreaming, or taking time away from dreaming,

everything pushes from behind without heading to a direction,

every day i smell the oxygen from the cracks ive made,

the fruits of labor without seeds within,

no balance arrives by mere thought, we must tightrope this reality,

we end up under the road we travelled, and my talk of adventures

is just whittling away maps carved from soap.

'yes youre right' the mantra

which gives me saving grace from many an encounter,

i am not argumentative to those i dont know,

but most friends will agree i can be disagreeable and stubborn

when it comes to what i believe in and chose.

i can, for a amount of time, take up either side of an argument or idea,

i can, for that space, take myself out of an equation

and play up the strengths and weaknesses of any side,

its not a problem to temporarily agree with a stranger,

for it is not my house so why debate my actual personal codes,

i formed them to live by, not to shoot down others with.

the exterior of self, rubbed raw and punctured continually

until numbness arises from lack of protection,

incomplete thoughts released as confused sentences,

breaking the calm surface spirit with choppy translations of art,

the strings which hold a mans interior with gods exterior,

we cannot wait for others to notate our sense of attainment,

we cannot have another person grant us our peace,

we cannot put a date on our day of salvation,

we cannot follow passions without offending some close to us.

it is hard to find faith in man, for they are riddled

with insecurities and jealousies and aggressive behaviours,

and hide them all with offensive actions to quieter men.

with an empty plate, i will walk the earth, looking for a flavor

which can accept the spices i have mixed, with my grave,

let there be nothing but an impression of these bare feet,

the blueprints of a script never finished, and me caught

in the last thought of if i left anything behind

which was not already there.

the waves breathe a last heavy sigh of relief, having carried

their anonymous messages to the edge of their known universe,

to come crashing as i too, will one day curl and crash,

relieved of all messages, easily replaceable by other couriers,

the silence of man at the ocean, ring and echo, retreat,

resolve, the white noise of identical songs as all events

come to a close with a break upon the shore.

EDIT OF ABOVE

at the beach, each wave in final sigh of relief and clatter,

having carried their single notion across thousands of miles,

to the end of their known universe, this pool in which i too will collapse,

grasping at unsolid shores, relived of burdens, debts, and gravity,

until i am the end of a long-aged action, death is the sixth sense,

a silence which will sound like the last wave unfurling against the sand and stars.

a light behind my back, i stay attentive, directly facing

the shadow of me, i am a envelope of time, burning negative frames,

trying to put words down the throat, diving into expansions

of promising darkness, my eyes only noticing that

which cannot have a name, nor cannot be possessed.

i set course for a lazy shade to shield a overheated mind,

a cover which the sun cannot strip nor stretch, a place to pull

lost memories out from their peepholes. this life is rest before dying,

so i will write in my sleep, as sailing with the random winds,

each sighting of land to bring either laughter or tears once reached,

i am a tired heap of detachment, i hibernate without drive or desires,

i only bear my teeth to clowns, i want to be my own best teacher,

the hub of a cognitive universe spinning around the black hole of love.

i abandon light, divorced from its reach,

shadows keep colors all evenly saturated,

my rainbow scurries to dimmest escapes,

fragile creations whod melt in the brunt of daylight.

i did not choose the handwriting, nor any of the parts which create it,

i own a heart i cannot see, and a framework i can only poke at,

i did not choose the defects which define me, yet i must control them,

where in these aching lobes does the I exist in me,

if my decisions are based on references, how can i follow perfection

by practice, perhaps my physical form is the return to earth

of unanswered prayers. however deep my roots, i will never know

the source of the springs which feed me, however many flowers i may pick,

it is not me who spreads the pollen, whatever potentials granted to me,

what does it matter if i do not reach the tail end of all questions,

and reach the midst of silence.

the curses of luck, chance, fate, and co-incidence befall us,

but where is the foundation of faith, which atom

does the universe spin around, how much contemplation maintained

until i can set aside false triggered emotions and bring out only joy.

i place my faith in art before science, i attest that peace must precede love,

this era of 'instant access gratification' has created foundations

of empty promises, empty spirit, empty eyes where the sun once shined,

and of these i do not want to catch myself peering in through the windows.

everything i said today, i had heard yesterday,

i cast out my net of nerves into the sea of life,

hoping to catch some sustenance beyond reading life from books,

my nerves jumping and chirping, i salt them with more attention,

and raise the periscope of my spine into this flooded brain,

amassing mixed medias, washing all emotions to see their true color,

i become me by careful intake of sensations,

and i juggle all goals equally so not to drop one,

everything i say tomorrow, i have thought today,

i know truth does not make a man rich,

but i am willing to settle.

today passed, it seemed to be the twin of yesterday,

they spent last night together, both shared

the same people, the same greetings, the same submissions,

the same squinting out the window into postwar parking lots.

i go out and lean on a tree, with its 34 pairs of lovers signatures

carved into its trunk, the fall season coming closer, i smile and daze,

all structures around me folding to one dimension,

all cars spreading to only colored streaks of gelatin,

all clouds bearing the fangs of bluesky, bleeding with rains,

the electric limbs of this tree sparking with black ants,

and my body, twisted asymetrical proportions, and my time,

recognizing chaos and stitching it into organization,

i spin webs to throw my heart upon, i pinch molecules

and squeeze out binary visions, i elbow emotions and force them

to sit alognside me under this tree, with autumn notions,

and the falling leaves of a coming spirit.

EDIT OF ABOVE

today passed.

it shared most its minutes in common with yesterday,

and they both spent last night together,

today ends with me squinting to see a streets end horizon with postwar parking stripes.

a muscular tree, 34 paired initials of lovers back to 74,

my eyes unblinking, locked onto the tree,

its lazy shape held down by gravity boots, low saturated colors drained by an august sun,

after a minute my vision broke out of its shell, my body loosened the straps,

and sank back a bit harder on the warehouse i lean on, all depth,

all buildings folded down to one dimension,

all cars reduced to hasty streaks,

the clouds reduced to bleached unstrung flags without a wind.

electric limbs of my awareness, my collective, my concious,

they cradle life with each second, each inch,

and vivid flashbacks seep in like black ants through the windowsill,

all is parallel, circulation and retreat,

my body creases with asymmetrical proportions, my mind cleaned of words and concept,

chaos moves to unity and sniffs itself,

and this silence of 10 minutes staring blankly at a tree,

it breaks my restrictions from framing my 3 dimensional world,

it frees me temporarily from defining this frame of my life,

the single point of which all points conclude.

the vibrant hum of writing verses of love, a lifeline trickling

with myths and morals, embellishing wants so they appear as needs,

pasting scraps of thoughts to spell out some sensbilities,

i look for something to move closer to, i try to find a soft spot

in these conversations, trying to drive people around their potholes,

the vibrant hum of mental machinery, wanting to produce beauty

from actions without words.

i want to deliver more than just talk of ambitions,

i want to coordinate the shortest distances between wanting and having,

i want always to adjust my soul so that my conscious always raises,

and i dont want to talk too much, pretend too much, hope too much,

i want to offer up my best expectations and efforts, not relying

on teachers or selfhelp books. the present time, ever so precious,

a beautiful gem in a small giftbox, so simple the token,

what more value then time in your hands.

i want to coax the stars to release their blushing secrets,

i want to be open to admitting my failures, the more i love myself,

the more i lose myself, and my foreground intentions

mend seamlessly with background gestures.

somewhere, scattered amongst my papers, hidden away in the mind,

are all the gifts i need for this life, but it is separating

the gift from its container which proves difficult, and it is saving

the wrapping it comes in which would mean the world to me.

a marionette strung up by verse, these hands are my master,

the breath which blows into them in the night,

the amber which surrounds the insects to preserve a moment in time,

my lantern, this candlelight, my eyes alight on each passing cloud,

naming them, giving them footsteps and heartbeats,

rotating the crystal whos dark facets reflect my deepest thoughts,

a metamorphasis of undoing, a bubble rising with captured angels,

this honeycombed dream i have fed upon is the sweetness of my shadows dancing.

the candle flinches an inch as i sigh, pen in hand,

i connect the dots which hold the heartstrings,

i will keep hitting this hammer until all shadows are flattened,

i will keep relighting this candle with the flint of focus,

and meditate within the fogs which drop from the sky

and encompass this man and his dreams.

we lay together, haphazard, immune to any consequence,

time lurks outside the window as we huddle close to keep warm,

we bask in our genuine accident, we run through each others field,

limbs drawn out by silhouette, a clock frozen since our meeting,

we paint patterns and point out our soft spots,

and allow love to mimic our motions.

two moths burned by one flame,

spent tongues and revisions of one dream repeating,

our halos not washed out by the rain, our emotions not clouded by shadow,

we look to each other as fish pondering rain,

these memories we make holding each others hourglasses,

they will one day be lost once our sand runs dry, and we will part

as if this spirit was never shared.

i must turn, i must go back and begin again, the racetrack,

the timepiece, the gears which wind up my days

but dehydrates my dreams by night. at this age of 22,

i am still wary of which life to live out, i know nirvana

will not be achieved through a certain job or purchase,

i know i cannot be drained of power by leeches who degrade me,

i know this collapsing star within my ribcage must find space

to seek out god in the details of my meanderings, without timelines,

without restrictions from man and his gravity.

the possessions i once craved i now own, and i realize

how they hold me hostage, but i had to own them in order to move on

to the next progressive chapter, the projects i once craved, i created,

and made more money than i thought i would, and enjoyed my creations

more than i ever hoped for, but even these things must be surrendered,

because all drives and passions approach, fulfill, then recede,

and i am but a vessel of these notions, whether they spell a conclusion,

or not, i am content in that i tried, i am happy to know i have achieved

already so much more than i thought life would give up on its own to me.

i do not have to draw a conclusion on any event in order to find peace,

i only have to know i tried.

i do not want the virtual realities eclipsing my spiritual progress,

i know there will always be chaos, i know some feel the need to choose sides,

but i can float, without cause or definition, i can stay out in this rain,

while others scamper to shelters. i do not believe one law can cover us all,

there are always exceptions, there will always be weapons,

and one mans inspiration can be another mans crippling vice,

what common truth can exist without god,

for a man without spirit is an animal,

and a man who lives in denial of the magic of reality can only

delve deeper into his virtual worlds which only exist in mind,

thanking no higher power except praising his strokes of good luck.

my friends might not have much in common in our lives,

but we can still take interest in each others realities,

we can tolerate each others petty weaknesses, we judge ourselves

before each other, we play with opposing concepts without aggression,

we know how far apart we travel we still reach the same points,

and the rest of the people who know me, well, they check in

every couple years, just to see if im still alive,

for im just a curiousity to them, a pet mouse to entertain,

and i must bear feigning interest in their stories

as i am suffocated by their offputting bad wit

as i play along with their laugh track.

nihilism is the rats feet first touching the floor,

knowing right then he never wants to be caged again,

the possibility of me choking up is a thin hope of spectators,

they invite me to share in their labor, they want to see

how much it takes for me to say no. scramble and run

dont slow down until you cant hear the cagedoor closing,

i cannot put a sequence to my life though i pledge

to keep death at bay, to move with the softest touch,

my mind suprised by the good graces which keep coming,

i try to title these places and events, but it is too swift,

i try to count my blessings, but too many, the past

is a miracle, the future is a bonus to live out, each day

new wings grow to replace the old, and i somehow keep flying.

the evolution of clouds, tuck the wings in, pull the feet up,

dont concentrate on one cloud, just stare blankly at the whole,

blossoms, collapses, lungs of the atmospheric cycles,

no immediate points, crosseyes and staring detached, release

control, release perception, release definition, for life

falls through everyones hands, do not squint, do not turn off power,

do not put a icon in this religion, for gold and driftwood

both hold the same weight. there is no wealth in entertaining others,

there is no price to watch the culmination of clouds

in their constant changing of clothes, their unseen currents,

the soft paws of celestial beasts, the bait of divine ambitions,

the day is filled to its brim every day, if only one remembers to always look skyward.

the basic instinct of love, the higher meaning search,

that which is beyond known directives, that which lets life

pass by unnoticed, the inner meditations which slip on themselves,

so many alternate endings to every emotion, so many ways

to count the senses, the actions performed without reactions,

the eyesight between observer and object, the separation

between meaning and thoughtlessness, an embrace of sensations

when only love and hate are the only two types of existence

which both give back more than you can hold.

my god is so dirty, much dimmer than yours, i fear asking too much of you,

i never want the expanse of your love for fear it may be hard to release,

all my own time is spent counting down the numbers until i reach

the zero to you, my heaven is an expanse of dead grass,

and your water, your words, is the only fertility i can believe in,

but this makes more of a crutch than an inspiration.

you dare me to fall in love, but i know how to fall down too well,

i manage my tendencies by categorizing their timelines,

my personal fallibilities are ungrounded wires poking through pupils,

you dared me to choose someone to love, but i would never bother

to make you flinch, i want the child in you to keep the innocent smile,

i dont want my silence to ring in your ears.

artist, who bought the frames but never defined the faces

musician, who danced alone but never tied the notes together

poet, who staged life around, minus his own footprints

lover, who took of passions but never passionately partook,

let all the inspirations take pause, let reflection come silently,

the map to peace is empty paper, the path to flight is dance,

open hands bless the darkest faces, unborn spirits escape the smile,

nature does not make cages and only passions capture a man.

a love without clutching, a kingdom ruled by creation,

it is hard to stop marvelling at existence, yes, it is hard

to choose one path and keep course for one lifetime, yes,

detachment is both blessing and curse, this open container

of self is filled with every moment, there is no discipline

in this art form of life, it is so very hard to stop creating

and start playing the grey games of regular men.

make no adversaries, for they will always make themselves

when you are content with your chosen direction.

EDIT OF ABOVE

artist who bought the frames yet never broke ground on canvas,

musician who danced with the crowd yet never tied down his personal notes,

poet who always wrote of life, without the meaning of his involvement,

lover who took up passions but never passionately had given,

the cheat of sleep, retreat of reflections,

this lost map to peace, an empty paper with inked fingerprints,

the exhalation of a newborn, nature does not make cages,

only passions make a man, a love without leaving marks,

life is too short to marvel at all possbilities, one must be taken up,

the music that never repeats plays within each soul,

and it is this life which must mix the paints as it plays.

the tired road, regurgitating treaded memory, an exhausted nod,

and i recall the night in flames, we danced patiently, an empty act

out of habit, it ended without a shatter, we shut down to each other,

a smoking fuse without spectators, we folded flowers and blankets,

we dried off the sweat and went to the bathroom whispering,

the intricate intimacies unwound, the energies back on their leash,

clumsy fingers back to the open road, an unmarked shell,

this end of us, without a climax, ever so slowly,

released of all its steam and motion.

EDIT OF ABOVE

the tired road, it is over. a tired nod, and i recall last night in flames,

we danced politely, keeping a foots distance, an empty act for remembrance,

drawing straws we pulled the last, no dramatic shatter nor confetti,

the fuse smokes out without spectators, we fold as dried flowers,

colorless hallucinations, naked bathroom whispers, clumsy fingers,

pointing blind direction to open roads, the tears, the exhaustion,

we turn opposite each other, quiet without questioning, and never look back.

she paints her nail while tapping the rest, the tune of crickets,

she smiles atop her high gloss, returning my words with a half-blink,

her thoughts must be managing some busy dream, her broken attention

as she turns her eyes to the night with the broken cameras of god,

as she turns her eyes to the mirror, her best friend, and one tear,

a cherry aquaduct falls, marking the trail from her head to her heart,

this impatience, this woman, with never more than half of anything to share.

stripped of all possessions, is there humility when owning nothing more

than the cells which contain us, man masters powers around him,

but cannot control within him, he has more locks than items

which can be stolen, he inquires of the future without recognizing the past,

and it takes a female to bring him home.

the afterglow of an overflowing passion, thin veils of possessions,

all the leaves have left the tree so now is the time to climb,

exposing a transparent heart to observation, come lay

under the green light, the love you gained has stained me too,

my lips stuck with sap, my control, given up for the flow

of what love leaves behind.

EDIT OF ABOVE

the afterglow of passions which once overflowed,

consumption of the thin veil salted of possession,

tickling the spurs of contraception, the leaves have left the tree,

green lights overgrown, our hearts too transparent for observation,

your love has stained both knees, one finger circling the source of song,

my tongue still numb from sap which leaves you tired.

DIARY, CAR-CAMPING IN THE KEYS

I don’t have anything too extraordinary to write of today, I don’t feel particularly animated of body or mind, as I am just sitting still, feeding off of the precense of the non-natives around me. I have been two days in key west, with an experience unfolding minute by minute and heading in no known direction. I am only here, and now writing because I want to take a break from this sunny island reality around me.

I could not hope for more; I have my backpack, a notebook, a camera, a sunburn, and a rented bike. These constitute a vacation for me, but vacation assumes I will return to some directive and schedule once I return home, so perhaps this is not a vacation, since I am bound to no honor upon returning to west palm beach from the southernmost tip of America, surrounded by pale visitors with flowery new clothing.

50 feet in front of me is the largest boat ive seen in person, it has 7 levels, 3 of which are filled with 100s of people all googleeyed and waving towards the piers to no one in particular, they just want to take part of ‘the voyage’ adventure by waving greetings to yet another port. From the rear stomach of the boat a live band echoes is drums and guitars, and about 30 random people on the pier wave back at the voyagers, all in their golf caps and striped navy shirts. The boat nowhas completely eclipsed my view of the ocean, and smaller boats appear from both sides and begin tying the boat to the docks with massive ropes, while a female voice echoes across the entire structure, letting everyone know it will be an hour before they are allowed to disembark.

It is somewhat coudy and a perfect 80 degrees, though I feel the heat amplifying on my shoulders, and I am a bit tired even though I slept solidly in the van for 8 hours last night. If I had a blanket I would lay it down across this birdshit carpeted oilstained dock right now, for the saran wrap of tired is tight across my eyes. I hear a payphone ringing. A band is setting up on the dock getting ready to charm the passengers of the boat, the keyboardist is practicing his synth-steel drums in a hokey sounding island melody. A family of Russians are sitting next to me, reveling in this democracy and the fresh popcorn on demand, they are dressed as though they pillaged a kmart, all the way down to their Olympic-ringed tube socks and shirts with sequins hanging randomly across. There are nesting birds above me, calmly watching tourists assuming them to be humanity in general. Kris is sitting further down on the dock, he is writing as well, and dave rode off on his bike to discover the citys outskirts. We all rented bikes for $10 for the day. 2 biplaces pass overhead, jamacian music pops out from two six-inch amps running on battery power, people are in random groups passing brochures promising restaurants and cruises and snorkel adventure, sweaty fingers roving through the paperwork. The dock has turned from a few people into, 30 minutes later, a fully-thriving instant community of over 100 people.

Men with peppered heads, square bifocals, white alligator shoes, wives of denim, breaded seafood from pseudo seafood shanties, goldtone jewelry clanging and chattering together. A dozen ropes have now held down the beast onto shore, and the boarding rails are now being secured by deckhands running down the boarding slope like disturbed fireants from the hill. A short black man does a huffle around a steel drum while he plinks out a rhythm, something sounding like an underwater sesame street while he begins a song in some Caribbean dialect, he is everyones favorite photo of the day as they snap away and smile and nod along, he will get his $100 in tips surely in less than an hour. I am now discouraged from being on this dock any longer, for there is no more ocean I can see, and there are hundreds of people restless for something to happen, and loudspeakers are echoing from everywhere parlaying messages for all non-citizens onboard, while giant diesel clouds rise form the ass end of the boat and float slowly over us all in a sick fog.

I just bicycled for an hour, now im back at the dock, theres is an ant dancing on the bottom of my shirt, kris and dave went to our van to serve up baloney and cheese sandwiches, they will probably drink a beer there too since we bought a six pack just to pretend we are regular drinkers knowing how to enjoy ourselves in the keys. I drank two beers last night, and it put me right to sleep, I am not a drinker nor enjoy it. A pelican has flown right near me and is watching the initial throngs of passengers finally disembarking the ship, coming into new street musicians, new tshirt logos, new atm machines. The six payphones are now filled up with lines waiting for all of them, people excitedly chatting to family back home asking them to guess where they are now, and do they want anything while they are here. Ok, yes, Ill see if I can bring back some keylime pie, a conch shell, a key west tshirt, a hemingway trinket. Personally, I could go for a quart of lemonade, I have got to go find water, the only basis of my existence and my chance to continue existing is my drivers license and my credit card, otherwise I am worthless. I must go find water though, my lips are stickingly-dry.

I am now on duval street, sitting on a closed stores inset stairs, it seems it is a closed down camera ship that’s been covered up with brown paper bags all taped together. Duval is the main street of the keys, and everyone walks this streets very busily with somewhere or nowhere to go. A joe college kid stops and asks me what I am writing, I say I am writing nothing, he nods and looks back to his friends, I think he wanted to show them he could easily strike up a conversation with a native, but I sort of shunted him. I bought a 20 ounce powerade at the gas station, it promises a bounty of copper and electrolytes and the same ingredients as a bowl of green beans. It seems to turn to pure oxygen as it hits my throat, my cold sweat of dehydration has now heated back up to a properly healthy hot humid sweat. Public writing is like a 400mm lens, passersby hope when you swivel around and look at them with pen in hand, that you are not about to capture something about them. The breezes have stopped from the ocean and now the still air brings in the scents of the local community, a mix of wet cigarette butts, wetworn leather ad stale mixed drinks. My hands are sticky dirty form not showering in two days. It is a spring break here and you can the presorted sex groupings, girls in chattering groups and guys together following them with hands in pockets, a smaller mix of families and elderly couples who fell from the cruise ships. It is 230pm and although no one appears drunk now, in 3-4 more hours it will take a sudden shift where less straight lines will be followed. More noise, more police, more people asking what im writing, more deeper laughs. This town has two shifts, the 12 hours of neon tourist glitz and then the 12 hours of drunken wits where all the food and drinks place switch out the family friendly signs and music with stronger sounds and texts to pull them in with promises. Dave just biked right past me without seeing me, he goes on down duval, past the two miles of little shops wit windows filled of starfish mugs, manatee maps, conch keychains, fluorescent shorts, food shops with fried seafoods, beer for a buck, and the occasional sex and drug shop.

The street is a pinball machine of cars bumpers mopeds bikes rollerblades and any sized wheel imaginable heading from a to b to a again. Last night I saw an accident, a girl opened her car door and an old Cuban homeless man on a bike slams right into the door and flips over it, she screams and grabs her face, I don’t know who she was screaming for, but he was more embarrassed by her outburst than his own pains. Later on I saw both of them separately, both drunk, so life worked out for both of them it seems. i wish I had a cushion for my butt, people walk by veering like schools of fish, I am not a good storyteller I realized, I take 15 minutes just to describe a one minute incident.

A man in his 50s has been crawling around town all day with a walker, he has hiv written all over his hollow face, his skin is massively scabbed up and his eyelids hang halfway to his nostrils, his mouth drools to his chest, he ash no hair, and that just gives me the deepest sadness so I cant bear to look as he scrapes along. Last night joe college guy and buddies dropped two pennies on the ground in front of the guy just to tease him, to watch him take a minute to slowly attempt to go down and pick them up. He hovered over the pennies for almost a minute comtemplating if it was worth possible snapping in half to try and get them, his arms shook just thinking about it, joe college and friends just watch him grinning. It takes only a few scenes of events as this to really turn me off to the sometimes-apathetic construction of humanity. Kris went over a picked up the pennies and then he physically took the mans hand and twisted his shaking fingers apart and forced the pennies into them, the fingers snapped back tightly on their own, and the man tried to look at kris and smile, this breaks up the party for joe and friends so they walk away looking for other trouble to stir up.

I am spending $10 a day here, forsaking a hotel room with being able to clean up at the walmart bathroom and sleeping under the fullmoon with a blanket and eating what fresh foods we can cook up off some sideroad with charcoal. The first night dave woke up before kris and I and he went walking along the beach before the sun peeked above the horizon, when he returned back to our van he found there was some middleaged pervert looking into the back of the van where kris and I was sleeping with our shirts off. I would not of known of his presence except for the fact I was woken up by a strangers gruff voice angrily saying ‘ill shoot you’, which is what the pervert was saying to dave since dave had come up to him yelling’get the fuck out of here’ (daves part I didn’t hear because he was 30 feet away whereas the pervert was right at our door). I woke up when the man said that but I didn’t move or turn my head, only my eyes, since the last time I heard that was when I was working at a hotel and a masked man had come in with a 357 and was waving it around the 3 of us, but I was under the counter taking a nap at the time and scared he was going to be surprised by me when he jumped the counter, and shoot me. Well, kris bolts up all wildeyed and the man runs over to his buick and takes off, as dave gets in our drivers seat and pursues the man. We ran around town following him for almost 30 minutes through so many backroads, trying to pull alongside him to throw things at him, but the man ignored us and kept speeding and taking sharp turns until finally he lost us by breaking the road rules and driving directly into traffic until it was unsafe for us. Kris and I had taken a roadtrip before to Tennessee, and we had parked at a reststop, and kris woke me up at 3am whispering that a man was peering at us in the back of my car and he was jacking off. when I think of how many men wander reststops across this country doing their dark little tasks, I shudder.

Today at the showers we met some guy at the beach who said he was awoken at sunrise by a man telling him he couldn’t legally sleep at the beach, then the guy told him he could though sleep at his house, since he was a native and hospitable is was only his nature. Ill bet it was the same guy. I just took a break and biked around town and over to the docks again, then came back here to the steps in front of the camerashop. Im waiting for a teenage pair of lovers to finish their yogurt so I can steal the bench theyre using. A lot of the roads are brick here, and I love that. I wish we had them in west palm. The people here are dittoheads, I cannot tell by looking at just the people if it is 1983 or 1999, everyone is generically fashioned. The second the young couple finishes their yogurt and gets up a senior couple sit right down there with strawberry ice cream. I spend some minutes debating whether I am a city person or a country person. I like the adventure of cities but I love seeing green all around, so its hard to make a decision as to where to plant my future, my eyes are dry and sticky and swollen from tiredness. I wonder how people meet each other in public. Im not like that. Man lands on a rock in space, man heats up some dirt that can compute 10billion operations a second, and man meets strangers. It is all beyond me.

My eyes are slits now, I try to predict peoples motions and guess intentions, as people pass I try to tune into their frequencies like radio stations fading in and out, I try to send out vibrations from the spine to see fi I can turn their heads. So hemingway wrote classics here, how did he do that here, it mustve been a different place then for it seems inspiration here would be tough, he did a lot of travelling. I wonder if he did so from bravery and adventure or because of a wanderlust and indentity crisis. I wish I knew id be able to turn into something artistic for a living, but knowing my fears I will probably end up doing some pathetically proficient job with computers. I wrote 1000s of poems in my dismal room at home. 10,000 maniacs fades in and out of a car stereo. I don’t see anyone else writing or observing around me all day. I think my enjoyments are what most people consider work, and vice versa. It is 350pm and a heap of girls with th shortest of jean shorts walk by with the hem of their asses popping out like cherry ridges, I want to bite one, any one.

I spend another hour sitting here thinking ways that people become products of their environment, and how the purpose of life is to find the power which is greater than oneself, that same power which is within oneself. Then people once they find that power, they go onwards to become a product they desired in childhood. Along the way they tightrope between economics and desires. Along the way they becomes all environment and little self. The sun has broken through in the final two hours of the daylight, its at the perfect angle to be shining in my eyes, I must move on. Now I am back at the pier where everything is in reverse. For the sun is headed down, the people are headed back to the ship with filled bellies and full arms with purchases, and the ocean is now inhaling all the breezes it exhaled all day. Its must more relaxing now which makes it harder to write. I get annoyed watching people take photos. The millions of daily shots which must be processed, all showing person X at point Y, smiling, waving. All to gorge a photoalbum with multiple proofs that yes, I was there, as seen, and then I was there, as seen, and look, even here, as seen. Just take the photo and forget the poses or stand on your head, or something, anything. Why just memorialize boring tokens of existence.

Now a street performer named dr juice sets up his schtick, hes a short muscular black guy in his 30s, he marks off his space with chalk, which is a good ploy because its works up peoples curiousity, hmmmm, why is this man drawing up a 20 foot wide square, and can anyone walk over it. Then he begins yelling out for the crowd to gather around, while hes still drawing and not looking at anyone. After two minutes of telling them to gather round he magically has collected over 100 people who had come to watch the cruise ships sail off. theyre all snacking away at the popcorn and apples and sugar doughs and chips they’ve bought at the stands, they have honeyglazed eyes as they want just anything to get their attention before the sun finally sets. Dr juice sets up two lights since his performance will go beyond the sunset, I get up and take a seat on the pier behind him so I can see more the crowd than the performer. Another man comes with his small cracking guitar and an old amp, and a little boy named martin comes up to the guitar man, but martin is on his fathers shoulders and I am guessing something is not quite right about martin, I think he is mute or deaf, he has crooked eyes and crooked smile. Nonetheless he is smiling and bouncing and sees the guitar and smiles more, he father keeps calling martins name and pointing to the guitarman. Martin clutches a pink elephant. The pier is too crowded now and its too much to even be able to watch people since theyre shuffling too randomly, barely any room to walk without squeezing past chests and butts and shoulders, ‘excuse me’ ‘excuse me’ ‘excuse me’ to everyone and no one in particular, breaking up tight knots of conversation, breaking up the attentive eyes focusing on balancing acts, fire eaters, cat tricks, cookie peddlars, escape artists, leather belts and beaded necklaces, studded gemstones and seashells. In the crowd I am cramping up every five minutes for about 30 seconds, this is to be blamed on my crappy intake of foods since ive been here, eating everything out of plastic packaging, I must go scout out the cleanest bathroom in the keys now, one which doesn’t requires dinner reservations for the right to drop a load off.

Ok I am back the deed is done. It is 720 and now nighttime, only cedar colored streets lamps illustrate the evening along the waterfront, half of the performers have finished for the night, so half the people have also left as well, searching out a place to eat or drink for the night. When each performer finishes his act, he never stops talking, he never stops his forward movements between finishing the act and getting his bucket or hat or box by which to begind quickly going through the crowd holding it out and asking for some small amount for his show. It is that segway in which the smiling laughing and clapping audience fades to cynical and wrinkled and hurried faces who must quickly head off in some random direction pretending they never watched it to begin with, for fear the performer will hold the moneybox up to them and make a loud comment about donations. It is amazing how fast they scatter right then, only to slow down when they’ve happened across the next performer who is still in the midst of their act.

I feel like my writing ability diminishes as time passes, or perhaps I am just finding less reason to write over the years. I suddenly fret about why I even headed down to the keys, it was just a spontaneous event when kris called and said he had borrowed a van and was heading down there immediately,and if I wanted to come along I had one hour to get ready. He also gave the same choice to dave, so with $20 in my pocket down we went, and only hours into the trip I asked where he got the van from, and he said he had asked a company to borrow it for the day so he could use it for moving his personal items. I didn’t know this part, nor did I know that 3 days later that company would be asking around town to see what happened with their van.

I see no stars in the sky tonight, stars barely exist in south florida because the humidity soaks up the stars radiance. I can barely see where the sky and sea meet, and that’s where id like to be, in the nowhere that is only invisible because it cannot be seen, not because it does not exist. Kris lost the lock to his bike and now he has to pay $4 extra to the bike rental place. Plastic cups are clattering around as the tradewinds roll them in ellipses across the wooden planking, mixed with cigarette butts, stompedflat popcorn, crushed straws, barely-used napkins, and the flotsam by which man creates mountains. I have never seen an autumn up north, I wish this garbage were colorful leaves. You have to be a good dreamer in florida because reality offers slim pickings.

The contortionist man is a strange study, he spends 30 minutes setting up his little wooden trunk, out of which so many pieces of metal come from, once hes emptied its contents in a heap, he stands there, very still, in another world for over 30 minutes, not even performing, just as if god was holding him on a spiritual meathook. After his show is over, he does the same thing again for 30 minutes, and then repacks much slower than he unpacked. Dave had actually participated in the mans show, helping him wrap the man tightly in a straightjacket and then adornments of sturdy chains and handcuffs. Dave was certain he would not be getting out, but he didn’t have much of a problem unhooking all his bones connections and slithering out of them like a snake.

It is another hour later, now darkness hides myhandwriting, I cannot see what I am writing, I am tired from a full day of observing, and writing now feels more like picking scabs instead of planting seeds. The plastic cups are in the dozens around me, quiet, for the winds that follow a setting sun have left. The only people are those who are in small bands and are walking off their tropical meals, they are in the purgatory between dinner and drinking, which they’ll do once they get back to their hotels and take a afterdinner mint nap. The 3 of us are sitting on the steps of a closed shop called ‘neptunes world’, kris and I are both writing and dave is talking, and surprise we are all 3 drinking beer we bought so we could take part in the play. Jimmy buffet plays perpetually 24/7 on duval street, and people are just clumps of blood cells, circulating and racing past the streetlight lymphs, some stop and chat for a minute or two, they are from Miami, from germany, from ohio, from south America, and this is our last night since we will be returning in the morning back to west palm beach.

It is now the morning, and we are on the beach, we are closer to the road than the surf, and we decided to stay a few hours longer because when we awoke in the van on the beach we noticed mtv was setting up some ‘spring break olympics’, and the 3 of us decided we would take part. Without getting into detail, I actually won the pizza eating contest, then I won the limbo contest, and each time with cameras and 100s of people cheering I won gobs of freebies including towels and food and all sorts of junky accessories including tons of condoms, of which I threw out to the crowd. So now we have beach supplies and food to last us the day, and I am still basking in the quickly fading Olympic glory. I am guessing I won both only because I was the only sober one competing. The heat on this beach is dry like a fairgrounds parking lot, distant scents of sausage and lemonade stands move thickly by, blankets are so dense that there are small lanes of sand you have to walk through like it’s a beach theatre. The ocean itself looks filthy, layers of muck and weeds with stink and flies on top, 100s of heads propped up on elbows when you look right and left, squinting eyes wondering when the water will be clean. I slept so deep last night I don’t even know if I am fully awake. I dig into the dirt and find 3 things by which to remind me of this trip, a wood chip, a beercan tab, and a smoothed beach stone, they go in my pocket and will be kept at home in a bowl where I throw such items. Kris and I sit and talk and describe the games we see around us and try to write up the laws of each; the drinking game, the mating game, the social game, the check and the mate, the volleyball game. We try to wring as much energy out of this adventure as we can before it is all over, and we are thrown back onto our hometown streets, so devoid of any need to interact.