{18}

Arica.  Post-colonial streets:  electric-lit highways and old English lamp-posts.  Ghosts from the eighteen-hundreds still hinted their presence on quiet days, obscured by a misty, half-forgotten past.  The roads decayed in swarms of plastic packets, broken beer bottles and unpainted houses.  Brand-new shanty shacks bloomed daily.  Afrikaner policemen and hoards of African beggars, all graced their way through this Africa;  littered in places with traces of laughter.

And yet somehow, small isolated pockets of the First-world thrived, in apparent isolation from the rest of the continent.

In contrast with the African setting and Colonial architecture, the University residence obscurely resembled an ancient Oriental building, with its roof curving skywards.  Yet it was also oddly modern and richly ornate;  paid for and built by the extraordinarily lucrative South African Gold and Diamond-mining industries. 

Those that frequented this hotel-like accommodation were mostly rich kids, mostly white, and mostly in line to an elite upper class career, if all went according to plan.  The University had a good name.  OK, so some of the less desirables smoked pot, but which University doesn't have a crowd with a taste for the forbidden?

Nonetheless they represented the future, the forefront of progress.  Comprising  the businessmen, politicians, artists and scientists that would lead the country - and the world - into the post-millennium era!  Taran-tara!!!

“Did I say artists?  What has art got to do with progress anyway?  Isn’t art just a meaningless pursuit of pretence?  Just a pass-time for the rich or lazy - for those with nothing better to do?  To put it bluntly, is it not quite useless?  Something to keep us occupied now that progress and its machines have released us from the mundane chores of survival.  Surely the ultimate realisation of art is The Almighty Television, or kinky sex, or drugs - or all of them combined?”

“How can you speak such utter crap!” screamed Leon, spluttering in protest at a very smug looking Danny, (Leon’s cigarette balancing an inch long ash).

They were both sitting on a log, with the remnants of a marijuana joint buried at least three metres from them.  Someone had once said that they could not be arrested if the illicit substance was at least that far away.  One can never be too careful.

Danny savoured the taste of marijuana in his mouth, feeling a subtle buzz tingle his skin.  That full calm feeling in the heart and throat, and the sound of his own voice vibrating through his chest with a deep resonating warmth.  hmmmm. . .

Leon excitedly continued his protest/defence, the ash from his cigarette falling off before he could flick it.  He flicked anyway.  “Art is the pursuit of something more than pure;  something above normal life, beyond the mundane existence that most people consider to be the value of their life;  it's sort of like, well fuck man, its far better than digging in the dirt for useless bits of gold.”

 “What is?” said Danny shading the glittering sun from his eyes with one hand.”

 “What is what?” said Leon

 “...better than gold”

 “gold?!”

 “Ja, gold”

 “What was I saying?”

 “Huh?”

{19}

Well, marijuana can be mentally stimulating, but it does occasionally have the ability to distract one's attention from the topic at hand;  But often enough, the distraction itself can be more interesting than the topic at hand anyhow. 

This is because the herb loosens up the inner subconscious, so as to allow thought to become more fluid and less rigid in nature. . . sometimes harder to keep in a consistently routine, and logically linear form;  but instead allowing consciousness to be experienced from a more spontaneous and changing perspective:  Metalogical.

Clearly this is good for Creative pursuits such as art, poetry, problem solving or lateral thinking;  but it sometimes can (without proper disciplined focus of the mind) briefly inhibit any repetitive tasks, such as arithmetic or accounting, and pursuits requiring formal logic, such as long-winded arguing.

The brief inhibition of the logical mind normally only occurs with beginners.  Yet, if the mind is focused, and in a position of being used to the pschotropic synthesis of marijuana into the neural pathways of the brain, then repetitive pursuits can themselves be effectively explored with more efficient regularity, and for lengthier periods of time.

This is accomplished when the rational (or analytic) side of the mind is placed into automatic mode so that it does not matter if the attention is distracted by the Creative (or synthetic) process.  This is because the rational (or logical) mind is reduced (with good effect) to a semi-conscious function that only requires cursory attention by the focus of the consciousness.  This is possible because the rational thought-process is primarily mechanical, repeating a few simple principles over and over again.  Like any such exercise it requires only occasional attention by the seat of awareness;  that is if the true order of the thought is overstood instead of understood.  This is how people that are good with arithmetic do it.  Not by calculating every step, but by overstanding the simple principles in the process as a whole.

{20}

Aside:
The reason why artificially intelligent machines such as computers or calculators are unable to have true intelligence, is because they are never Creative - but are simply rational in the way they process information, without the synthetic ability to form their own original knowledge.

Their processes are entirely predictable, as the lack any form of intuitive/creative leap.  Thus, unfortunately for Philip K. Dick, Androids do not actually dream of electric sheep.  But biodroids on the other hand, are another matter entirely.

{21}

The art of setting the rational mind into the automotive-mode, is a little tricky to learn at first, and can sometimes result in the classic short-term memory slip.  As the microscopic rational mind struggles to keep up with the intuitive leaps that the macroscopic creative mind takes, so it finds itself in no-mans-land. Before it can come to terms with this, the creative mind has already moved way beyond the next wave of thought-flow.  The rational mind (which is also involved in the flow of speech) is often left with a mere “Huh?”

But if the analytic mind is automated, it can now speed up its processing, also allowing the Creative mind to retain a larger portion of the mind’s total energy.  But when the occasional creative leap becomes a sudden flurry of dancing vision, then the detailed yet vast flood of sensual/mental input can become overwhelming.  Especially if ones’ spirit is not agile enough to deal with the increasingly changing sense of perspective.

The awakening upliftment that ensues must be experienced for itself personally as it is largely beyond words.  So if some one just says ‘Huh?’, and stares ahead of themselves, in a trance-like daze, how do we know what they are feeling, , , or what they are experiencing from within. . .?

                                                                Growth is simple -

an effortless energy. 

Like a candle it seems so alive, yet without struggle. 

It flows like a river because it must.  It grows in a way like lust - it has to just - being unforced. 

Spontaneous in joy, infinite its cloy, It sprouts new life at every chance, to enhance the young leaves.  And once the leaves have erupted into being, then nurtured, and expanded;  multiplying in variety.

More-than-look at some-any-thing:  See a tree and the tree sees me, and seeing frees me, because now I'm no longer inside me looking at the tree, but i leap out of me and dive into the leaves of the tree.  Become each nuance in the breeze.

Even the ugliest man-made bricks or machines are alive;  so too the stones and everything we can think of.  Horror fantasies;  murderous thoughts, they live.  Poems are worlds within civilisations of living energy.  The Universe abounds with vibrant life.  Stagnation is a lie for those who don't know how to die.  There are immortal Angels on concrete pathways, even in anger-ridden city-slums are lives of pure enormity.  Abundance overwhelms and dwarfs all thoughts of Creativity.  For this excess of life that I feel is always changing and growing.  The laws of the Universe are constantly inconsistent and always being slightly altered.  One can Be(li)eve each change with fluxes of paradoxes;  as they sneak and overwhelm.  The idiotic idiom says:  there is nothing new under the Sun.  But everything under the Sun is always new, nothing is without dynamic spontaneity;  it humbles my tumbles, until my head spins.

Then I close my eyes.

And I feel smooth air breathing thru my lungs, in a rhythm of solemn energy.  Each cycle echoes the last, but unlike an echo, each breath is more alive and fast, each is a new beginning;  the birth-life (death) birth-life yin-Yang of existence expresses itself like a whole new individual Universe with each new breath.  My body quivers, as I feel the redness inside me.  Scarlet waves pulse, and at their peak I feel sanguine climaxes exciting my veins.  Crimson is the colour of life.  Ruby is the vitality born out of the industry of strife.  The multitude pauses, flashes, bright-violet for an instant - then the whole world turns green.

I open my eyes.  And for the first time it seems

I see

I see simple things:  Leaves;  new leaves, a lean tree, the breeze.  This is where I be;  I be life:  in ecstatic entropy

free

{23}

Danny squinted into the sun as branches of tree flickered sunlight across his face, thoroughly absorbed by the radiating patterns of light as it filtered through the leaves.  A moving and living kaleidoscope of silver, green and gold, evoking the awakening of a whole new cycle of his Being.

“Art has more value than gold!”, he exclaimed finally.  Leon’s cigarette burns into the skin on his fingers as he drops the butt suddenly, then squashes it in his stride as they leave;  loping slowly off into the forest and silently swaying trees.

The eucalyptus that had swished its tall leaves in front of Danny’s face, enjoyed the bright sun on its branches.  It vaguely became aware of the departure of the two humans, leaving behind them their trails of smoke and thought-debris in that most unphysical of substances called ether, which modern scientists refute the existence of.

Ether is the substance in which thought-forms reside, and has been considered so since antiquity.  However it seems highly peculiar for modern scientists to deny its existence, for this denial would originally take the form of a thought, and without a medium in which that thought can take place, it remains a rather disturbing question of just how they ever could have made such a proposal. . .

Anyhow, ether is a very important part of a sentient being such as a tree - branches swaying in harmony with the humans as they leave.  The tree decided to leave too;  though of course when a tree leaves it is quite a different event as to when locomotive life-forms leave.  A single dying leaf dropped to the ground for them, and the tree dug its roots in a little deeper, after which it decided to grow an inch because soon one of those white-coated scientist-creatures was coming to measure how much it had grown, and the tree had fallen behind the expectations of their theory which it had encountered in the ether.

Although the theory was not completely understood by the tree, it could sense that this complex web of energy gave the scientists much esteem and enjoyment, and it really did not want to disappoint them if it could help it.

It was of course a bitter irony that they had to scribble the theory on bits of pulped tree to remember it, but humans did do strange things.  Perhaps it was because they were lacking in the ether department.  The tree leaved again because in the future it foresaw itself being chopped down and left to rot.

>it would be nice if the humans would join us in paradise again<  the eucalyptus thought a couple of days later.

 >one day they shall<  came back the message from a young oak tree.  This message taking an entire week to portray in a complex set of branch-shakings, rustling, and leavings.  To the oak this one idea was an exceptionally delightful expression to portray, as it felt the form of this desire come from places less tangible, more permanent, less predictable and more absolute, within, closer to the high whiteness that glowed from inside its trunk.  The eucalyptus gave a tree's rendition of a smile back to the oak, and the whole forest chorused much rustling with them.

>yes those two humans who were smouldering the other day,
seemed not quite as rude as most other long-apes around here<

A few days later the scientists returned, and were delighted that their theory about tree-growth had been confirmed, so they proceeded to chop down the eucalyptus.   The reason being, that it was not indigenous, and it was also growing faster, and consuming more water than the others around it.  Not a good thing in a society where ‘norms’ have a seemingly religious value.

Its trunk was left to rot on the forest floor, and thousands of beetles, flies, worms and other creatures made homes in it.  It looked up from where it lay chopped to the ground, slowly fading out of the world and exclaimed in what best way a tree could:  >Oh, I am dead!<, before it's soul consolidated the ether gathered in this life-time, and moved off to elsewhere in the infinite cosmos to begin a new existence, away from the ‘norms’ of people.

The oak tree was not chopped down, and lived on with the rather disturbing thought as to whether or not it was considered ‘indigenous’, or rather ‘indigenous’ enough.  As all things seem to at one place in time originate from somewhere else, its hard to tell who is indigenous to what, actually.

And, in the enormous life-spans of trees, indigenous normally meant ‘of this here solar system’.  The red-speckled acorn being particularly good at surviving interplanetary space journeys after being blown into space by comet, meteor or volcanic activity.  Some oaks consider even the local Orion star-cluster to be a bit off the beaten path.

>perhaps,< wondered the oak, > if I were to make myself look like a Coral tree, then the men in the little white coats would leave me alone. After all, I’m not anything like one of those nasty eucalyptus fellows at all.  I’m quite a different species altogether. I don’t take well to choppong, I’m more a Zen sort of tree, preferrin to humbly just fall over one day, without making a sound. What’s the volcanic activity like around here?<

{24}

Danny and Leon moved out of the residence, as it became tiring playing hide-and-seek with the ex-Rhodesian war veteran who was their ‘Hall-Warden’.  He was more commonly known as ‘Herr Fuhrer’, and had tried his best to catch them smoking the good stuff.  However, his efforts came to nought, for Danny and Leon always kept one gooses step ahead of Herr Fuhrer.  Even after Danny’s room was raided by Herr Fuhrer and a few of his Troopers on several occasions, and nothing was found, he was still hounded.

The little posse, then tried another tactic:  Searching his room while he was away, and still they found  nothing.  So they tried the ‘Narcotic Police Motherfuck Tactic’ of planting some marijuana in his room during his absence.  But the next day when the Gestapo arrived, and went straight to the cupboard where it had been placed earlier. . . they found nothing because in the couple of hours in-between the two events, the marijuana had already been smoked.  Danny only figured out what had happened afterwards.

“They must have planted the stuff there because I haven’t seen marijuana in blue envelopes since I was in Cape Town, and I never just leave the stuff in the cupboard.  It was actually OK quality.  Wonder who the petty little tyrants stole it from?”

They moved into a cheap house pretty far from the hierarchy of Herr Fuhrer, his Hall-Wardens, Head-Wardens, Wardens and sub-Wardens, demi-Wardens, quasi-Wardens and, wanna- be-a-Warden, Wardens.  It felt safer to be near the local Ghetto.  All one hundred dirt-poor-thousand of them.

Having walls of concrete, a permanent electricity supply, as well as hot and cold running water, they were in a relative form of luxury compared with their less fortunate neighbours.  Much of the town, in contrast with the University, consisted of a conglomeration of scavenged dwellings built largely out of corrugated iron, cardboard and just about anything their owners could get their meagre hands on.  However, some were fortunate enough to work deep within the hot dirty bowels of the South African mining industry. They could afford real little brick houses, with non-leaky tin roofs.

For the first month Danny and Leon lived on easy junk food as their upper-middle-class background dictated.  As the funds ran low, they changed their tastes, and for the last month lived on just bread and jam, and joints to make it taste good.  Drunken teenage floozies were ripe for the picking at the local University tavern.  Life was great, despite half-a-dozen burglaries, and a few close calls with the narcotics police.

20 year old wine they drank on their first evening in their long-since-last-painted house, but by the end it was cheap plonk and 20 year old David Bowie songs, until the tape-recorder was stolen by some poverty-stricken bastard from the ghetto.

Hitch-hiking 1000 kilometres at a time was for when you got restless.  Lying around and building sculptures out of any rubbishy thing and every treasury item became a frequent occupation, and lectures on Friday afternoon were considered to be virtually a sin.

What does the mind do when it is released from the bonds of necessity?  When it has grown past learning, and sees an open world as its stage. . . when the limits of its upbringing are stripped away, and it stands naked out of its cocoon. . .

Eternal creatures bound and spring in the youth of time. . . like kittens spying a twitching moving thing.  Fascinated by the object of desire, it boldly dashes forward oblivious to the dangers.  Not letting the possibility of shadows hinder its spirited stalk and wholehearted leap.

{25}

Being a male and white in those times was not nearly as pleasant as most people make it out to have been.  Getting thrown out of University was the shit-streets because that meant conscription to the army.  A one-way ticket for marijuana ‘possession’.  The irony being that once arrested it is the Police who are now in possession of the marijuana, so technically you’re no longer breaking the law, but they are.  One should be tempted to make a citizens arrest, and confiscate the marijuana back again.  Of course re-arresting each other could go on for a long time before the cop’s shift comes to an end, and he has to go off duty.  Being a civil-servant, surely he could be convinced his shift is over.

However, the normal routine was to catch the poor bugger, preferably on a Friday, so he could be left in the cell to Monday.  His folks would have to pay Bail, a Fine, Lawyer’s fees (funny how its always seems to be the same smarmy lawyer that gets the Lawyer’s fees).

Then, he would be suspended from University for a year, which would cost an entire extra year of University fees, board and lodging.  But worse than that if he chose to finish the academic year first and then have the trial, he would be excluded from the University for the following year.  And that was far worse because then one of those most sadly insidious of characters would pay you a visit:  A South African Defence Force Military Police Personnel. 

And they would come-a-knockin' on your door to fight a bloody war.  Drag you off like a press-gang to do battle with some people you've never met, and who are no threat.  And if they were such a threat, you stood less chance of getting shot by not confronting them with a gun thank-you-very-fuckin' much.  Conscription was a pain in the arse, always niggling at the bottom of your mind.  It felt as if the world was a huge spiritually constipated arsehole. Full to the brim with waste and useless energy.

And if you tried to resist it you were doubly screwed because Black people hated you for being White, and White people hated you for not hating the Blacks.  And if you were at school, you were beaten twice as often if they new that you were a ‘Kaffir boetie’.  Often school or Univeristy grades were lowered if you were seen as  ‘liberal’ or ‘subversive’ or mixed with non-Europeans.

Leon was delighted when he found a dead rat outside that had been squashed flat on its side with the neat patterned symmetry of a car-tire.  With a look of religious revelation in his eyes he picked up the misshapen creature and proudly affixed it to the corner of his painting.

Leon drank whisky and decided to become obnoxious.  Women loved Leon, then hated him.  Leon thrived like a big male rat in a cheese factory.

Danny's room was an explosion of shrapnel.  Danny was high.  All the time.  On the roof was the best place for it, because you got higher that way.  Danny wrote poetry:

                Outside clarity in mystical outlands
                (danger)
                a few only did venture
                and inside the sickening hole of society
                were considered outcasts.

                Those that believe they have knowledge
                stayed behind.

                I stand before it with pirates and outlaws,
                someday I'll choose it
                someday
                lose  it.

                Over your flat heads
                you'll jail me again

                (the music stops)

                “am I a pawn in this game?”

              

                I can see it in front of my hand,
                if I grab it, it goes

                coaxing, willing,
                crawl into me, come

                let go your rails

                (tightrope)

It was South Africa, the year was 1989, and some bone-head called Barend Strijdom, a white neo-Nazi extremist, went berserk one day, killing twenty black people.  “Free Nelson Mandela” was the political catchword in the 'left-wing' University that Danny and Leon attended.  A so-called liberal University that had a policy passed down from government that a minimum of 80% of its students had to be white.  This in a country that was of course 80% black.  The academics accepted this with token protest, probably a formal letter that was ignored.  Of course they had families to feed, they couldn't jeopardise their future by admitting even 21% black.  Not even that token one percent protest.

Ironically, after the fall of apartheid, full-scale affirmative action was implemented, whereby the required marks to study further, differed according to biased racial or gender categories, designed to make it very difficult for young white males.  The University beurocracy then reacted the same way:  Accepting it as fine to base academic progress on politics rather than merit.  An institution run by old white males with jobs secured for life.

Danny decided politics was a headache and became an anarchist, preferring moral integrity to a belief in rules for the sake of rules, no matter how corrupt and backward.  Being anarchic, Danny decided that two plus two equalled whatever the fuck you wanted it to mean, got out a piece of paper and a piece of charcoal and wrote those few words that probably contributed to him being thrown out of University.  The neo-Nazi maniac-killer mentioned earlier called himself the “white wolf”, and the message that was displayed in front of the art-school for all to see was “free the white wolf”.  In a  University that had deep-entrenched racism, and blatantly false claims at liberalism, this was tantamount to suicide.

“Now what the hell did you do that for?” said Leon to Danny after a mini earthquake erupted at the University.

“I was just testing what their reaction would be, said Danny smiling, “they were so livid, it was hilarious, I mean here are these white-assed upper-class rich kids

“But the only reason you go to the township is to score grass.”

“So what?”

“So what did you do it for?”

“I don't really know, I just had to... it was just so... well it just had to be done.  As academics who penetrate the deeper meanings of things, maybe they should have asked me what I meant before they condemned me as something I quite clearly am not.  They just took it at face value, and ripped it up.  They were probably feeling suitably happy with themselves for being so liberal as well.  I mean what ever happened to freedom of speech and assuming innocence until proven guilty?  For them I was a suitable scapegoat for their own white guilt.”

“So what then is this deeper meaning?”

“Well it could have been lots of things, like I would have used the word 'free' in a less physical sense, like we should try to free the White Wolf from his prejudices, like I would like his soul to be free, because this country will only be liberated when every racist on both sides has a major attitude change.  I probably also just wanted to rattle their complacent self-satisfied and spineless cages.  The ambiguity in the message brought out the shallowness in their character;  I was challenging their way of perceiving things, their minds are so closed that they didn't even give me chance to explain myself, or for that matter, give themselves chance to look at the numinous meanings implicit in those words.”

“You'll get yourself chucked out of ‘varsity and then you'll have to go to the army.”

“Ha!  Fuck the army, you must be crazy if you think I'm going to end up there, I'd rather blow my own brains out than give the government the satisfaction of doing it.  But that’s odd.  The racists, label me as a racist in order to hide their own racism.  I mean look at the way they hire those aged and impoverished Xhosa grandmothers to pose in the nude for pubescent teenagers.  And they probably pay them below the minimum wage.”

“But that’s for the sake of art, you’re a prude for not appreciating their nakedness for its aesthetic value.  And their is no minimum wage in South Africa.”

“Art, fart.  That is exploitation, and an embarrassing objectification of the inferior other.  If forcing grannies to strip naked is their idea of art, then why don’t they convince their mothers or grandmothers to pose?  You know why they don’t, because it would be humiliating.  Those women have been stripped of their dignity.  You obviously just don’t see how it is disgustingly unethical to particiapte in that cattle-show.  But you’d rather watch them suffer for your sake, rather than risk suffering yourself in order to help them.”

“But that’s human nature.”

“That’s what I hate most about humanity.”

The next day Danny put up a poem on the kitchen door that said:

                How to be free:

                take all you know and disbelieve it,
                all that you love, and hate it,
                destroy the memory of your friends,
                remove everything in your path,
                once nothing is in front of you,

                destroy all around you
                and then die yourself

                that is how to be truly free.

The day following, Danny stayed home and got drunk and stoned instead of going to lectures and sunk into a deep depression.  He gave himself six days to find something worth living for.  At the end of six days, if no such thing could be found, he would leave this world.

Strangely those six days were of the happiest in his life, as nothing seemed to matter any more, now that he was leaving.  Living in a hellhole country that was just about to explode into a violent war at any point, did not matter, as by making his death pledge he had indeed freed himself from this life - and its troubles.  Once, prepared to take this bold step, just the preparation had freed him from the necessity of actually doing it.

In a way, it became a paradoxical  anti-climax when he saw the slim girl dancing at the night-club.  She seemed etheric, other worldly.  He decided that she was worth living for:

                I can see you
                Spiralling closer
                movements of shape
                movements closer

                there's insanity's crowd
                prancing dark presence
                inside a hazy cloud
                forever becomes the sentence

                black ghost in shadows
                speak with your dance
                don't let the silence
                consume this brittle chance

                mover in the mist
                dark mover in the clouds
                shape thighs and calves
                spinning-wheel-arms

                speak with your dance
                creature of intrigue
                the grey blows past
                cold into the doubt               

                my body feels shiver
                my eyes feel shut
                and something so small
                I feel a shatter

                with touch

Howzit

                How you doing brotherman?  Fuck, wot a rush, today is.  Thursday, one day before the Taurus full-moon.  And what has the period of Taurus brought about for us?  Well I'm sitting in bed with a queeeeesy belly;  it is about 8 in the evening and I have just woken up.  To explain this I must methinks recap on my antics over the past week, starting last Friday. 

                Well I don't remember wot happened at all on Friday itself except that I bought a bottle of red wine, but then fell asleep about sunset and woke up 17 hours later, and from the state of the chaos in my brain I can only deduce that it must have been quite hectic.  But I do remember Saturday, I decided to go to the pub for the first time in weeks.  I went with a guy from university called Nick and drunk a bottle of gut rot red wine, and then He disappeared with two women.  I made a rather large wackeysmoke on the way to another pub.  This Schmaff was made in a storm-water drain where there was many a weird scene in our gold minds.  Once at the pub, I meets this bird called Mickey after transcending at least four levels of drunkenness and six levels of stonededness after the earlier-mentioned Schmaff wot woz smoked. 

                Mickey buys more wine, and I stare at the glass wondering if I'll ever be sober again, and also wondering why the light bulb keeps jumping out of the ceiling and poking me in the eye.  I compromise and drink the wine.  Scenes then seem to flash past me, and I find myself with Mickey the blonde seduction machine looking about as horny as a rhinoceros on heat.  I think to myself “this reminds of that movie Barfly”, so she says “this reminds me of Barfly”, so I say “all we need now is a good fight”.  Looking around we both spy a large rugby player with thick glasses who has a most violent temperament and who has been threatening to fuck me up or kill me or do other such nasty deeds to me all year.  Simply because my hair is long?  I smile wickedly and point in his direction. . .

                So she walks over to el-rugby-playing-individual and bumps into him rather accidentally-seductively with most vixen of looks on her face.  (I must say she is one of the most nubile of wenches I have laid myself on in many a millennia).  So she turns him on, apologises with just a gentle touch to the arm, and walks away.  (His eyes of course fixed to her tight sauntering butt.)  So far so good.

                She walks back to me and,in his full view, before I know anything, our lips, tongues and bodies are locked in an energetic electric fit of mind-consuming pure raw completely adulterated passion.  Our dear friend with the negative intelligence then turns first yellow, then white, then red and purple before going a terribly putrid shade of green, as steam starts coming out of his ears and eye-sockets simultaneously.  A crazed stream of saliva drools out his mouth and he manages to utter several rather boring and cliché’d foul words, the pathetic nature of which I shall not bother to repeat here, while his puny attempt at anger gives him a slightly comic wobble.  Several of the inevitable peacemakers start trying to calm him down;  but by this stage he is quivering so much, and the steam has fogged up his glasses, so he is now one rather confused sightless, quivering, wet, multi-coloured, empty-headed (and I must add, extremely humorous) rugby-playing individual.

                Now see the rather large, extremely funny looking rugby-oriented individual, being held back by two smaller individuals, while in the utmost innocence and glee, the two of us control our fits of hysterics into the very opitimy of innocence.  Now the two peacemakers actually saved the poor bastard, because if the love-goddess were unleashed upon him claws and all. . . well I shudder to think of the mess. 

                Anyway, scenes flash past and the poor cretin has vanished off somewhere, so the two of us destroy the pub, put it back together again, and destroy it again for the hell of it.  After we leave, el macho and his two sidekicks confront us in the dim-lit street.  I take out my keys and wrap them around my fist.  The flashing and jangling of the keys in the night seems to them like a blade of some sort (I overhear them whisper to each other), so they throw a beer bottle wot smashes beautifully on the ground a foot in front of me, so I don't move but instead smile gleefully moving forwards at a steady yet increasing pace, and they run to their vehicle and depart rapidly.  Perceptions, deceptions!  Illusions, delusions!

                The night ends in the raunchiest explicit, inspiring, creative/destructive not to mention tiring nights of passion in the existence of the game of rugby; the details of which I will not disclose at this point in fear of the paper I am writing on erupting violently into Limbo's passionate flames themselves.

                A rather less-energetic but all-consuming night of depravity in electric ladyland, and Monday sees the start of my bloody university exams.  Work 'till teatime, and then a joint with a most excellent droogie: Nick.  More work 'till lunch-time, another joint.  Joint/work/joint/work all day until I go home and collapse.  Fourteen hours of sleep and the next day I awake feeling much more refreshed.

                More joint/working/work/jointing/jointy/worky until I'm sucking on my pencil and scribbling ferociously with a joint.  Most of the week carries on in this fashion, but I get invited to some weird new-age meditation thingy, which uplifts my spirit!  I need this a lot.  So I go to the pub afterwards and have a handful more spirits to uplift my spirit even more.  I spent the next day wracked in stomach pains, no doubt inspired by drinking whisky on an empty stomach the night before.  Eventually I woke up this evening with a very queasy belly, almost puked a thousand times, and here I am at the present moment writing you this letter.  Well I suppose that's how I end up here and now like this and not that;  but the real problem being that there is a bottle of wine staring at me from across the room, unopened;  which I could have sworn I drank at some stage earlier in the week.  Well, no hassle, I think I'll celebrate the disappearance of my stomach pains, by drinking it.

Cheers,  Danny Jumpin' Jackie Flash.

{27}

Cheers,  Danny Jumpin' Jackie Flash.
Time passes, and people move on and can undergo metamorphosis.  Leon graduated top of his art class, then stopped painting altogether, and got drunk for a living.  He probably would have turned into a cockroach, but seemed a bit resentful that someone else had the idea first.  For a while he worked odd waiter jobs just to get cash to drink.  Art does not pay well in Africa.  Not well enough to drink the best whisky.  But alcohol itself, is a far more dangerous intoxicant than any psychotropic substance.

                                                                floating

                                                untethered

                                from the body. . .

                                                                                flying

                                                above

this world. . .

He turns back, just to look at what is left behind. . .
Danny sees his body, convulsing on the bed, legs kicking, arms flailing,
his body drowning in a sea of whisky.

                                                                                                                Must. . .
                                                                get back. . .

                                to my. . .

body

. , . , . , . , . ,

Relief.   Alive.

Relax.

Survive.

Danny then felt a strange tingling at the top of his head, which it seemed he could open or close if he wished.  and so let it slightly . . .

crack open. . . !

A sliver of gold          !

Illuminated mercurial-silver  !

                                                       pierces down from the top of his head and fills his body with a white invigorating light, tingling and filling every part of his being with an Infinite Celestial Joy:   A warm tingling sound;  like air yet lighter;  like water, but far smoother;  and like laughter, yet loftier.

>You can call on me, at any-time.  In your hour of need, I will hear you.<

Relaxed.  Danny smiles inwardly.  And closes the top of his mind shut.  The gold warmth ebbing through him.  Calmly.  Sleepily. . .

{28}

On finishing University, Mickey became a case study for psychologists because of her insatiable sexual appetite.  Much interest arose at the Psychology department over her condition, which somehow was seen to be very important in the social context of contemporary South Africa.  Many degrees were awarded for those that studied her, and study her they did!  In depth!  And with much academic enthusiasm.  Well. . .  at least it made a change from studying Politics.

The drunken rugby player was arrested a bit later for manslaughter after kicking someone to death in a bar, but was eventually found not guilty.  Of course a First Team rugby player had to be innocent.  In contrast, Nick was thrown out of University and jailed for a weekend for smoking pot.  Another typical result of the South African ‘criminal’ justice system.

As for Danny, well, he was also thrown out of University for not attending a few Friday afternoon lectures.  (Well that's what the University said)  This, despite scoring higher marks in his computer programming practicals, than anyone in the University.  He somehow managed to repeatedly score higher than 100%.

At first they thought there was a glitch in the program that marked the exams, but could not find one.  Then Herr Fuhrer decided Danny should be expelled as it was considered unfair to use performance enhancing substances.  But the searches for illegal narcotics made by Herr Fuhrer (and his posse of various degrees of wardenship), were still unable to find anything illegal.

So they tried to use the “Free the wit wolf” incident.  This did not succeed as the Disciplinary Committee actually agreed with the statement, and could not be seen as being too much against racism as well.  (That sort of middle of the fence attitude can be useful during a war, that may swing either way.)

In the end they settled on ‘the missing of Friday afternoon lectures’, as reason to end Danny’s stay at University.  Danny decided that natural poetry of an un-academic nature was the truest form knowledge anyway, and went to live for some time as a recluse, biding his time within the rhythms and counter-rhythms of poesy.

{29}

Well, the University continued producing its students with regular industrial efficiency.  The sun carried on rising every day, and a lot of trees were chopped down that year;  some were made into chairs for fat academic arses to sit upon;  some were made into toilet paper to wipe fat academic arses.  Some of the trees were made into writing paper, on which mortal artworks were created, some had important theories written on them.  Some had poems written on them, or suicide notes that never got used.

Other trees just lay on the ground, and slowly died, in the process making comfortable homes for beetles and insects, and other such manner of small seemingly inconsequential seemingly powerless creatures.

Some trees (such as the cannabis tree) were destroyed relentlessly by the narcotics police.  Squandering huge quantities of Africa’s meagre resources in chasing after the most rapidly spreading plant in the world, in a vain attempt to prevent its unquenchable permeation into our lives.

The Indian Hemp tree was first outlawed at the end of the eighteen-hundreds in South Africa.  But in typical South African tradition it was a racial issue.  Only those of Indian extract were forbidden to carry Hemp after the passing of the ‘Coolie Hemp Law’.  For once, it was not just a case of who or what was indigenous to where, but rather that the Indians were having a good time in the closest climate to paradise, with the most enjoyable pass-time in the world sprouting around them in the most fertile sun-soaked soil south of the Sahara.

Similar crookery is endemic to this sad world, as the rest of the world’s Police forces soon realised how profitable it all becomes when you can regulate who is allowed to do what substance when.  And, when it comes to a substance known since Indian antiquity (15 000 BC) as ‘the food of the Gods’, the profits are simply to drool over.

Other substances have since also become equally exploited throughout the world.  The North Americans do it to the South Americans with cocaine, the British do it to their own youth with ecstasy;  the Taliban in Asia with heroin, the British again with the Chinese and the opium trade for centuries now.  And the World Health Organisation with the entire illegal drugs market, for at least the last half of the twentieth century, including the exploitation of sporting world, by squeezing all sorts of extortions out of the athletes who have to take illegal drugs in order to compete on an ever-competitive global arena.  It would be truly amazing to see just what Maradonna could do with a football if he had to do a few lines of cocaine at half-time.  He would probably make Pele’ look a little average by comparison.

But that is that nature of people.  Always pulling down those that endeavour to achieve something better.  Envious little rat-like monsters.  But the better get through somehow, sometimes, eventually.

I suppose people are also just afraid of progress.  Look what they did to Galileo for a telescope that could look into the depths of the outermost Universe.  Imagine how much harder it would be to convince the local ignorant University professor of a substance which would let one peer past the Ego, and to meditate beyond one’s innermost soul.  Even into the voice of God?

But a few quick profits at the expense of all that is Sacred, seems to be a bit more important to those of the ilk of Colonial Constabulary.

The ‘Coolie Hemp Law’ could have posed a few other problems as well:  For instance what would the officials have said during the end of the eighteen hundreds, if someone of the ilk of Hiawatha Running-Feather had gotten busted trying to import his North-American variety of the herb to South Africa:

“Hey Boet, is the Chief here an In-dian?  Or like, is he an Indi-an?  uuuuuhhh?  I’m. uh, uh, uh, not quite uh, uh, uh, sure? huh?  In-dian?...  Or  Indi-an?    Hey!  Is this Chi...

“What?  Indian is just plain Indian, lock the bastard up.”

South Africa has had some notorious rules in its time.  The origins of which actually stem from Two hundred years of total bloodshed (on all sides) during the frontier wars in the two centuries previous the last one.  They originally had the First frontier war, then the Second, the Third, and lost track of the numbers round about the ninth.  After a time they just called it apartheid, but it was nothing special.  Just war.  Incessant war.

The coloured peoples (those of mixed origin) saved South Africa, because they just made it all far too complicated for the local Constable to maintain :

“Hey Boet, is the Rastaman here a Whitey?  Or like is he a Darkie?  uuuuuhhh?  I’m. uh, uh, uh, not quite uh, uh, uh , sure? huh?  Whitey?... Or Darkie?  Hey!  Is this Ras...

“What?  Looks like just plain Indian to me, lock the bastard up...  Oh wait a minute, that’s my Aunty’s cousin!”

I mean what is next?  Are they going to start gas-chambering the junkies?  Might as well, it would make sense economically.  Though not for the local narcotics police, Mafia, etc.  But, somebody has to go down every now and again to scare the cash out of the pockets of the common sucker on the street.  It would be amusing to know how many people actually use some type of illicit substance.  No way of telling really.

But what when trees become ‘controlled substances’:

“Hey Boet, is the Plant here a monocotyledon ?  Or like is it a diocotyledon.  uuuuuhhh?  I’m. uh, uh, uh, not quite uh, uh, uh , sure? huh?  mono...?...  Or  dio...?    Hey!  Is this Plant...

“What?  Those plants must be emitting huge amounts of oxygen.  Oxygen is a controlled substance.  Lock the bastard up.  Damn Indians and their Amazon jungle.  Burn the lot!”

Hopefully one day we will evolve to the ethical level of trees.  Hopefully one day.  One fine summery pretty day, the trees will make our decisions for us.  Even if they did nothing, but rustled their leaves a bit now and then, It wouldn’t do any harm.  At least they couldn’t make really big cock-ups like the world’s latter day governments have done.  A little bit of rustle instead of a lot of hustle!  What a great political slogan.  At least trees are vaguely honest.  And they are big.  Quite big actually.  And older than us.  We should definitely let trees run the world.

Then maybe the anti-marijuana laws would change.

One day too the King of Kings will walk the Earth again, and the Lion lie down with the lamb.  But until then, whether we like it or not, we will constantly be living in a state of . . .