Empire of Dirt

Walked along an amazingly clean-looking boulevard, the other evening or a few days ago (not sure of much anymore); not a cigarette butt in sight, not an empty can, condom wrapper, fast-food wrapper, nothing, man. Maybe it was dark, maybe I'm just a little blind in one eye, maybe I just don't want to look closer. Who knows?

The word surreal comes to mind. It's a Vanilla Sky meets Kerouac meets Camus meets unknown dark angel. Gonna pause here, think about it for a few seconds...wow, my ego is getting the better of my superior id. Could be my inferior id is fuckin' with my superior ego. Who knows?

Enough with the half-empty-half-full-full-of-it-glass nonsense. I'm no heavenly creature sent to earth where all will be revealed when I complete my intergalactic gospel mission. Goddamnit there is just nothing "angelic" about me, but I can be a dark motherfucker if the situation demands it. And lately it seems in my life, darkness is apropos. I think I might be the devil, himself, in disguise. Who knows?

Ghastly images blur the horizon ahead; shadows lurk in the peripheral. Women seem to plague my thoughts with lusty, busty, wanton buck-naked orgasmic search and destroy black ops. I see the outline of a town and wonder how I'd really react in a napalm bath if something went awry, and the whole commune was lit up like a January-old Christmas tree--final fantasy air strike call in: "Evvverrryy thing on my pod...I say, again, drop it ALL on my pod!" Whooosh, kaboom, comic-book-meets-deluded-fantasy-meets violence inspired erection. I think my life is so understated and overly simplified...nowadays I have to imagine a hell-on-earth just to feel a pulse. Who knows?

Yesterday or maybe it was the day before but certainly not a month ago, the U.S. Army recruiter, a SFC Susan Sum-thin-sum-thin emailed me. SFC Sum-thin-sum-thin wanted to know if I was "interested in taking advantage (sic) of all the Army had to offer." Interesting, indeed, but I'm not impressed all that much, really. There only two things that can be taken advantage of, I think, by Army standards: my civilian innocence and some poor Iraqi insurgent with a broken RPG. Join the Army, today, kill some Iraqi tomorrow kinda deal. The state-of-affairs, the present occupation, the whole apocalyptic neo-conservative, Bush hawkish scheme, Iraq and Trashcanistan, et al...it's just ridiculously horrible. Meanwhile, I'll take a pass on liberating Iraqis who want to kill anybody with cable television and grew up watching Gilligan's Island, Star Trek, and American Idol. Seriously though, I am depressed but I don't think I really have a death wish...anymore. If I wanted to kill for free? I'd join the legendary French Foreign Legion. And as much as I've thought about it, I'm too cheap to shell out bucks to fly myself to 94120 Fontenay-sous-Bois (Paris), Fort de Nogent (0ne of 16 recruiting centres). It also really goes against my Buddhist values. I could be an FFL grunt in the next life but in this one I'll work out the bodhisattva details, first--one mission at a time, little Buddha. Option (A)lpha: Dharma Warrior/Option (B)ravo: worthless Dharma Warrior. Who knows?

So, yeah, the world's got enough pain, misery, murder, mayhem, and mice-who-wannabe-men. I have taken company with the latter. I am a mouse or maybe even a city rat, lest ye be told otherwise for none-the-wiser. If I weren't a rodent in slacks by my own nom de guerre, I'd have been a better father, I'd have the smarts to leave a bad woman a long time ago before my life crumbled to this empire of dirt (thank ya, Mr. Cash for that wonderful line), and I'd have finished that gut wrenching book I'm working on in my dreams, in my afterthoughts, and on those all too familiar short naps while I'm driving home on some lonely highway. I'm a stain in time so I'll probably be a stain on the road one of these days if I can get past the REM stage on Route 66. Who knows?

After all is said, after I've gone away. What else is there to worry about that didn't really much matter when I was here anyway? Just the hurt? Just the estrangement? Just a dark woman waiting to dance on my grave? Just beloved children with my eyes, my nose, my curious love of simple things and jello? Who knows?

I am numb. There is a hole in my heart big enough to punch a fist through it. My life is a daily struggle, and I am the last man standing in a one-act play. Yet, there is nothing playful about what I feel and think and search for on lonely walks along clean boulevards. Every thing I know is meaningless, but the ground is my witness; the dirt I stand on, between my toes and in my lungs tell me I serve a purpose. I am still alive, still right here... but very numb. This I know.

I need to find Dharma, again. It never left me. I left it, sadly enough.