left here put there

REPEAT

I HAVE A FRIEND, A PARTNER IN SUICIDE LEAPS/BEACH LIVES/DIRTY KICKS/THRASHING FUN/BLOODY KNEES KNUCKLES ELBOWS/BAD JUDGEMENT/GOOD SURVIVAL SKILLS. ANYWAYS, SHE ME AND TWO OTHER BABIES WENT TO GALIANO. THIS IS SERIOUS B’S WORDS, MISSUS BRETTE REID:

Everything looks like  a painting.  That’s how you know the mushrooms have finally been absorbed into your system.  The feeling of a rock in your stomach dissolves into maybe a tenth of the whoosh sensation you get if you almost slip off the side of a cliff.  Colours look so real, everything must have been grey before.  You start off by watching the trees and the grass and then it dawns on you, everything moves in nature because that’s how nature speaks.  Antonia looks like a greasy child and moves like a spider.  She sits beside me and stares out at the ocean which moves in so many directions it’s a wonder the tide knows how to reach up onto the shore.  We go looking for graves and find four perfect resting places in her childhood vegetable garden.  The vegetables have died off so it’s the perfect place for us to die, too.  We realise we’re covered in sap and chocolate so all the vines and underbrush stick to our fingers.  As we lie on our backs in our cemetery plots, we look up and see a break in the tree canopy above us that is just big enough for our souls to squeeze through on their way to heaven.  For this, we are grateful.

the first bout of lunacy was a mild one —- brought on by the departure of a soul mate named buddy and the entrance of some heavy mescaline. All of us from those footloose years who had a visit from the Boogieman during some awful trip may remember The Face, which was either your own face, melting off your skull into the bathroom sink like a vanilla pop-pie, or, as often, another one beamed in from outer space.

1. An incredibly wrinkled, iridescent face. Starting as a small point infinitely distant, it rushed forward, becoming infinitely huge. I could see nothing else … When I first saw the face coming toward me I had thought, “Oh, goody.” What I had in mind was a nice reasonable conversation. I had lots of things I wanted to talk about, lots of questions it must have answers to. God, Jesus, the Bible, the Ching, mescaline, art, music, history, evolution, physics, mathematics.

The ecstasy did not last very long —- and in Mescalineville, time is all:

1. He, she, or whatever didn’t seem much interested in the sort of conversation I had in mind. It also seemed not to like me much. But the worst of it was it didn’t stop coming.

This first attack got me/you/him/her  admitted to the looney bin back in Vancouver, just long enough for us to learn how to angle our way out again (act normal; agree with everything; be polite and helpful).

Shortly afterwards puffing some extremely powerful pot got us back into orbit, for another three hundred years or so:

1. We went to the Marine Inn coffee shop to get a little breakfast. I’ll never forget Simon’s groan and horrified look when I ordered. “A cup of Mu tea, please.” It was exactly the right thing to do.

[For the non-initiated, Mu is famous in Buddhism; it means either “everything” or, alternatively, “nothing.” Mu tea probably exists, but only for those suffering from extreme ecstasy.]

1. “Mu tea? I’m not sure we have any of that,” the waitress replied. Another customer helped out. “Ain’t that some sort of Chinese tea?” And she brought me a cup of Mu tea. It was probably just some magically transformed Tetley or Lipton.

Then to prove to those around that i was in touch with the great paradoxes of the universe, i ask, “Is the tea in the leaves or in the tongue?”

1. I was trying out the new world and my new self. If I could get a cup of Mu tea in the Marine Inn, that was quite something. I mean, what do you have to have before you say “Miracle?”

Later, she confirms that she has touched The Infinite:

1. There were signs that it was all right. It even seemed at times that people were dying gladly to be able to make some contribution to our progress. Knowing winks. Light rays through the clouds. An old guy in a gas station cashed an old crumpled-up traveler’s check I found in my wallet without asking for any identification or even checking my feeble attempt to remember my signature.

the regretted remark, the hairy eyeball

meant for someone else, the unexpected fall

against the shoulder once too often. We come

home from life bruised, replaying the tape.

Under the cover, the radiators popping, 

we wonder if we we couldn’t have been 

better, knowing it’s true, make resolutions

the wake-up radio scares away. Still, we 

try, go forth to the world without armour, 

just our best intentions.

last night buddy called me, said he really wanted to see me and wanted me to come up this weekend.

My friend B Serious

I HAVE A FRIEND, A PARTNER IN SUICIDE LEAPS/BEACH LIVES/DIRTY KICKS/THRASHING FUN/BLOODY KNEES KNUCKLES ELBOWS/BAD JUDGEMENT/GOOD SURVIVAL SKILLS. ANYWAYS, SHE ME AND TWO OTHER BABIES WENT TO GALIANO. THIS IS SERIOUS B’S WORDS, MISSUS BRETTE REID:

Everything looks like  a painting.  That’s how you know the mushrooms have finally been absorbed into your system.  The feeling of a rock in your stomach dissolves into maybe a tenth of the whoosh sensation you get if you almost slip off the side of a cliff.  Colours look so real, everything must have been grey before.  You start off by watching the trees and the grass and then it dawns on you, everything moves in nature because that’s how nature speaks.  Antonia looks like a greasy child and moves like a spider.  She sits beside me and stares out at the ocean which moves in so many directions it’s a wonder the tide knows how to reach up onto the shore.  We go looking for graves and find four perfect resting places in her childhood vegetable garden.  The vegetables have died off so it’s the perfect place for us to die, too.  We realise we’re covered in sap and chocolate so all the vines and underbrush stick to our fingers.  As we lie on our backs in our cemetery plots, we look up and see a break in the tree canopy above us that is just big enough for our souls to squeeze through on their way to heaven.  For this, we are grateful.