Cri de cœur I can’t write. I can’t find the words. I have things to say, Perhaps too many things, But when I try to work I sit in my study, With thousands of Successfully authored, Beautifully completed books Sitting jauntily on the shelves, Quietly but surely sneering Their considerable contempt, And I stare at the screen, Stare at the words, Words hanging in the air, Characters, friends, enemies Waiting to be acknowledged, Losing their patience, Fierce in their will to live Their wild lives and squalid deaths, Their wondrous joys, love and laughter, Sorrows, pain and loss of hope; All jostle for position, All demand – shout! - to be continued, And I, the so-called mastermind, I sit and do nothing. A fat and full manuscript sits On a revolving bookcase, Close by my side, Above reference books, Dictionaries, thesauri, Tools of the trade, And it lays heavy on my heart Because I want to retype it, Edit and enjoy its story once more, Spend time with my friends in there, Watch, share their dances through life, But on the screen is another; This needs to be completed, Around forty thousand words is all – I can normally achieve at least Two thousand a day – And there are friends there too, But they have such complex needs, Wearying me at the moment, After many, many adventures, Sharing triumphs and disasters, Through somewhere in the region of Three hundred thousand words And a multitude of worlds. But I have to write. Every day which passes Without words falling onto the page, Without the excitement of Different worlds, different folk, Different times, different thinking; Days without magic, And ignoring Einstein, Because he was wrong, And dancing through space time, Sliding along the event horizons Of vast, slathering black holes, Hearing the song of the stars, And reaching out to touch The exquisite face of God/ess; Every day without this Is not a day I have grasped. I haven’t lived up to that Which I see on my wall Immediately I wake; Carpe diem! It is seconds, minutes and hours Which like the finest of sands Have trickled through my fingers, To disappear, diluted to nothing, Their mediocrity lost in the vast, night-chill Of the indifferent desert sands of time, And I am a day nearer to death, And though that adventure Excites me gloriously, I have words to say, Work to finish, Large projects and small Clamouring for attention, Some like meteors flying by, Bright, fast, ephemeral, Poems, sagas, taxing tales, And some the mighty gas giants, Vast, inscrutable, incredibly complex, Novels, a trilogy, lengthy tomes. So here I sit at my writing-station In the large sitting room, As far from my study as I can get And remain in beloved Kerlanguet. Squeaker will not sit with me here But has a nest on my desk Where she curls up and dreams Of the starship she captains, And the mighty battle being fought Along the edge of the Sirius System While I, her most humble servant, Sit and batter the keyboard, Often my words pouring out Far too fast for my clumsy fingers, Crashing totally the spell checker, All to be later corrected and reviewed. I sit here now, alone, hiding from Myself, my mind, my self-discipline, My imagination, my yearning, My friends and foes, All of whom wander still Around my searching consciousness, Each with their own inimitable style, Overstated, understated, sly and canny, Good, evil, hypocrites and bullies, Martyrs and vagrants, prophets and fools, And I try to ignore them all, But it is like sitting in a room With a thousand old telephones, All of which are ringing and I know That each phone has the right to be answered, Each phone is a call from one of my creations, And I have a responsibility to each, These my fictitious made real children, And I sit like a rabbit, Caught in the headlights Of an oncoming juggernaut And pick up none of the jangling receivers, Just feel their cacophony scratch my soul. I can’t write - but I must!

God, Reincarnation and the Nature of Reality

Hello! I need to talk to somebody to get my thoughts a bit more organised and I’m afraid you’re it! You know when you’re in bed and gently dozing, just at the edge of sleep and you feel snug, maybe like a young Peter Rabbit curled up by his Mum, deep in the soil, safe and warm, just vaguely remembering how nice the lettuce leaf was that you nicked from Farmer McGregor’s garden? You got that? Okay, that’s where I was at, last night. Just having a bit of salad cream on the lettuce and drifting off when I thought of God.

Now don’t stop here! I don’t mean God with all the angels singing praises and all that. Even as a child when I first ‘saw’ him I realised he’d have got bored with that yonks ago. No, I mean some kind of ‘Mystery’. Now, that’s not actually where I started, exactly, but it was all jumbled together which is why I have to write about it to you, you poor sod, because that’s the only way I can untangle the mental ball of string which is my jumble from when I should have been just drifting off with the taste of salad cream in my mouth.

My thoughts really, vaguely went to next lives. I don’t mean like Hindu’s believe in them, I mean reincarnation as another human being, or at least sentient entity with equivalence. If you want me to tell you why I am 100% certain about reincarnation, feel free to ask, but at the moment, please see it as a ‘given’. When I was younger and knew everything there is to know about just about everything, I had a pretty solid view about God, the ‘afterlife’ and stuff – I was actually close to being ordained as a C of E priest - but as I grew older it all grew fuzzier. Sadly that doesn’t seem to happen to all folk; they just get even more certain that they know everything and are always right.

Anyway, when I learned, after huge amounts of study and research that reincarnation is a ‘given’ I thought that was pretty exciting but really didn’t take it any further, other than to be pleased that I’d found there was almost always a gap between one incarnation and the next and reckoned that the inbetweeny time would be a good chance to catch up with all my family and friends who are dead before we all take up our next life. Are you with me so far? I hope so – at least I am!

So, proceeding from there, last night I wondered how many times one would do this? Would one reincarnate forever? Now, I don’t know about you but I find ‘forever’ and ‘eternity’ pretty hard to get my head round. The ‘God’ idea is tricky as well. It happens, with this latter, the ‘God’ thingy, I’ve had a few sort of ‘near death’ experiences but they’re not like the ones where you’re out of your body looking down etc. What I did know, especially for an extended period when I was pretty wrecked, is that a kind of Love with a capital L looked after me. Again, if you’re interested, let me know, but for now, at least, follow my kind of ‘logic’ and see this Loving Mystery as another ‘given’.

Okay, I accept there’s a Loving Mystery and really I know bugger all else about it. I take from my experience, however, that in the end, really the end, s/he / it will be there for me and for everybody else – especially you I’m sure, dear reader! I think s/he / it does occasionally intervene in people’s lives when they’re busy living them, but generally speaking doesn’t – a sort of extreme hands-off parent (parent is the wrong word but hopefully you get my drift) who lets us live through our incarnations mostly on our own, to get on with it and learn or experience whatever it is that one is fortunate enough to each time around.

That’s about as far as I’ve got with understanding what is going on other than, for another day if you wish, I think consciousness is not biological, or to be more precise most certainly isn’t all biological, and that through quantum entanglement what consciousness is is infinitely more complex than is assumed.

Now, let’s go back to my salad cream on the lettuce moment which I was denied. Though I accept that understanding the Love Mystery, reincarnation, consciousness, eternity and forever (one special and one temporal, but accepting Einstein’s ‘space/time concept) is not going to happen, because I am but a microbe trying to understand a human mind, I did wonder last night what the point of it all was; you know, all the incarnations and stuff? I accept that it’s some kind of learning experience – almost certainly – but wonder if one goes on learning forever. If that’s the case, though I absolutely love learning I can see that within the somewhat frightening context of ‘forever’ perhaps one might end up getting just a tad pissed off with it.

So - stick with me please! - I wondered if, a bit like Hindus believe, eventually one’s atman /soul /consciousness becomes one with the Loving Mystery, or Brahman as they see it, we actually do do something somewhat like this? (Hinduism, if one cuts through quite a lot of, shall we say, rather eccentric concepts seems to me to touch on a lot of stuff that makes sense. It’s just that like most major faiths, in my opinion, where somehow people and especially priesthoods have inadvertently done their best to obscure any ‘truths’ that actually are true! Hindus have had a longer time than most of the others to do this!)

Anyway, Hindus reckon Brahman is eternal, unchanging, a ‘resplendent consciousness’. I most certainly don’t! This was another feature of not rocking off to sleep as early as one might have wished. I ended up thinking that, okay, maybe after loads of incarnations, if for no other reason than to avoid the thought of eventual eternal boredom, one’s ‘consciousness could became part of the Loving Mystery, the super-consciousness that is in charge of, and understands, the whole kit and caboodle.

Maybe one gets recycled through that super consciousness and then has another swing round. I don’t know. What I do know is that I then made the mistake of trying to understand the ‘purpose’ of the super consciousness that is the Loving Mystery. What was I thinking! Microbe can’t sleep because of wondering what the purpose of a human being is! Daft, I know, but one has to wonder – actually one doesn’t have to and probably shouldn’t – and I did. You see, I most certainly don’t believe whatever s/he /it is, it is unchanging. I think any form of consciousness learns, to a greater or lesser degree (the latter being creatures like amoeba and Trump) and therefore the super consciousness must learn, really, really bigly, as Trump might say. (The spell check doesn’t pick up on ‘bigly’ for crying out loud!) Thoughts like does s/he /it get lonely came to mind? How does this Mystery cope with the whole eternity and forever business?

I realised at this point that possibly I was getting a little out of my depth! Long ago I accepted that though we operate in a world which for us has 4 dimensions, or 3 if we accept space/time as 1, but where even we have considered, in for instance string theory, anything from 10 to 22 dimensions, that the Loving Mystery will certainly function in many, many more, and that the world as we perceive and live in it is similar to that of an ant crawling around in an extremely limited ‘reality’.

Now, you’ll be glad to know that in the end I did get to sleep, somewhat frustrated at having not managed to unravel things any further than I had, but a little contented that I had given my own consciousness something to mull over, as I am, with you, at this moment.

None of this, of course, precludes ideas like space ‘men’ / entities which came down and interfered with primate humanoid DNA to help create this line of human that we belong to, or that there may have been previous civilisations on this planet or others. After all, the Universe was created around 13.7 billion years ago, the Earth is around 4.5 billion years old and humans have only been here doing their best to turn the whole place to shit for in the region of 200 thousand years. Something else it doesn’t preclude is humanity wiping itself out, a natural extinction event or humans being superseded by artificial intelligences – would they be our ‘children’, and if they continued to exist doesn’t humanity?

Of course this information begs various other questions; what was there before the ‘Big Bang’ 13.7 million years ago? Does the Universe / Creation expand and contract and ‘Big Bang’ again eternally? How is it that if our consciousness as we perceive it is so important it took nearly 4.5 billion years for it to happen here on Earth? Will AIs who are self-aware, fully conscious beings reincarnate? (My guess is yes.) If we, humanity are totally wiped out and we aren’t reincarnating into artificial intelligences on Earth, would family and friends all reincarnate on the same alien planet?

Some might ask does it also all happen on different planets with other conscious species? (I think that’s a no-brainer, yes, so we could have been incarnated anywhere in all of space as any form of conscious at our level creature. No need to be parochial about it!) Do creatures with ‘lower’ consciousness like dogs, cats – slugs – reincarnate? (I can’t see why not, but it’s a bit hard to get ones’ head round.) Do we become / are we partially already disembodied consciousnesses?

Within this vague framework, mostly held up by questions rather than facts, there must also be room to consider things like telepathy (there’s no doubt something often passes between twins no matter how far apart, just like with entangled quantum particles for example.) prophecy perhaps based on seeing into similar parallel universes with the clearer ones being higher probability (Or is time like an eternally wide vinyl record and you can jump from one ‘groove’ across to other, close and similar ‘grooves’? This might enable time travel, I suppose.) and the place of instinct, déjà vu (and déjà poo!) telekinesis, spontaneous combustion and all sorts of mysterious and magical (Is there real ‘magic’?) things which are real (Define reality) and perhaps close to being comprehensible, at least in some cases.

Overall, it’s all really rather complicated, don’t you know! Of course, it would be, is meant to be or what would we have to learn? Having jogged along with this bit of exploration, however, though I think things are a little clearer, it in some ways has reinforced just exactly how little I actually know; indeed, just exactly how ignorant I am. I am not despondent, however, at the enormity of the task which my consciousness faces, learning-wise. I am confident in the ultimate and eternal benevolence of the Loving Mystery, assured at least that there will be many other lives ahead for me to learn more and, let’s be honest, pretty impressed by the ‘smarts’ of the super consciousness that has put this whole, magnificent, ever changing puzzle together.

So, let’s you and I take joy in our situations, whether they be bad or good, for ultimately we’re cared for and if we screw it all up this time, when we croak we’ll see all our friends and family, pets also, I reckon, probably feel a bit embarrassed about what a cock up we made of it and then resolve to have another go, learn more, do better, slowly, slowly climb up the metaphoric Jacob’s Ladder, with each step finding further dimensions, greater enlightenment. For now though, I think I’ll make sure I have a large – possibly very large! – bourbon tonight to send me on my way and tomorrow I’ll wake up, look at the picture on my bedroom wall which states in large letters the unequivocal message, ‘Carpe diem’ and get on with the great adventure. Can’t do better than that! Here’s hoping after wading through all this with me, dear reader, you do the same.

Patrol

Christ, he was cold!

The wind was biting and

A drop of the ever-present rain

Joined others which had evaded his collar

And slid smoothly down his back

Undeterred by his goose-bumps.

He grinned slightly, acknowledging

That both the rain and situation

Were firmly at his doorstep,

And raised his cap to cover

The bottom part of his face

And took another deep drag of,

If his counting served him right,

His eleventh Marlborough

Since he’d got out of his pit.

Shite for somebody committed

To knocking the weed on the head!

He took another wee drag,

Reluctantly nipped it out

And put his cap back on firmly.

Better the burn marks inside it

Than a bullet through the head,

So Serg had told him

And he knew stuff!

He glanced across the road for Tom

Saw him tight by a tree,

His faithful friend

Held against his chest.

They called him ‘Ever Ready’

And he was a good man,

Older and wiser by far than he was,

His mate and mentor, good also

To have with you on patrol.

Fleetingly the wavering wind

Brought an unexpected joy,

Though most unanticipated

Before full dawn; a Pig.

He saw Tom tense –

He’d caught it too.

The sound became louder,

More certain, and then there it was,

Stopped in front of them,

The Sarg waving them in.

He looked around swiftly

And then just beat Tom to it

As he threw himself past Serg

And crashed his weary arse

On a welcome bench,

Tom sliding in opposite.

The Pig picked up speed,

Probably doing a dizzy

Thirty five miles an hour!

Serg yelled they had intel,

‘Death Squad’ arms dump.

Regulars and Army called

But they were nearest,

And movement had been seen.

He thought about it.

The Pig wasn’t going to

Creep up nice and quietly.

It was old, slow, noisy,

Had shite armour

And no Bren turret.

It kept him dry,

And that was about it,

And actually he’d prefer

If given a choice,

Which he wasn’t,

To be under the wet tree,

Waiting for a deep blue Corsair

Which might or might not

Come their way.

He hoped Serg had a plan!

Tom sat bolt upright, asleep.

Judas, it would be good

To be able to do that.

Serg followed his gaze

Grinned -  Every Ready

Was just as good at waking up -

And then reached into his pack

And brought out five

Completely non-reg,

Black and deep purple balaclavas,

Poked Tom and passed him one,

Shoved two forward into a waiting hand

And then passed him his.

He pulled it on

And careful to not hit Serg

Unslung his rifle.

Apparently there was a plan.

He and Tom nodded, ready

And the Pig stopped,

Engine running, lights on

But empty as they bailed,

Ran off the road through a copse,

And doing so cut the corner.

In seconds they were looking

Down at two cars, lights off

Shadowy figures just visible

In the drizzle and dawning light.

Their attention was towards the Pig,

Sitting just round the corner.

Serg was not a great one for regs.

He signed the two from up front,

Old mates Charlie and Paulie,

To prepare for their run,

Then he put a shot

Into the engine of the first car

And one after that,

Rolling back as

The runners took off in the darkness

To the little copse opposite

Whilst he a Tom gave cover

And then spread wide.

The cars were boot to boot,

A transfer taking place,

And he knew the one that was

Pointing to the Pig

Had less cards to play

Than the one facing up the road

And away from the action.

Obviously somebody in the car,

Was thinking the same

And it started, lurched forward,

Stalled, and he and Tom

Aimed vaguely at the bonnet,

A couple of rounds each.

Two down, eight to go.

Apparently it was enough,

As the driver tried to restart

And failed, and it occurred to him

What a fool he was

Because he must know

That whoever it was

Knew exactly where he was,

And could most easily kill him.

He briefly considered it.

It could be an accident,

But decided not to risk the Serg’ wrath.

As the group below –

He’d counted seven –

Cowered behind the cars,

Uncertain as to where the fire came from,

He waited for the two on the other side

To open up, cause confusion.

This they did,

Keeping their fire on the cars doors,

Making their position more obvious,

And he watched as the desired effect

Followed and the bastards

Rolled to the other side.

When they got there he and Tom

Put a couple of rounds each

Into their side of the cars,

Four down, six to go.

He slid the bolt slowly,

Chambering the next round,

Thankful for the thin oil

He put on every night

He was on duty, and

Watched to see what

Was going to happen next.

There were too many to arrest,

And too heavily armed,

But Serg reckoned if they

Kept them pinned down

It should give time for the Regulars.

It was not to be.

These people were bastards,

But other than that one thick driver

They were disciplined;

And so it was that a couple of Stens

Opened up to either side,

And as they put their heads down

Those by the cars broke for cover.

When they put their heads up again

They saw figures running

In every direction.

He could have, but he didn’t.

And as he prepared for Serg

To issue whatever next

He suddenly rolled

As a heli came over the rise

And the world was full of noise

And light, as the shites

Filled the dawning-washed dark

With flares, and he was blinded

For a long, fucking dangerous moment,

And so should the fleeing shites be,

But Tom, Ever Ready,

Must have closed his eyes

When he heard the heli,

Knowing what it would do,

And opened them slowly

So he could view the scene,

And he rolled and grabbed

Serg’ Sten and stood,

Firing high above the fleeing trash,

Fully illuminated by more flares

From the bastards in the heli,

And most fell to the ground,

But one must have done the same

As Tom; Tom his mate, his mentor;

Tom who always did the right thing.

And he knew, by Christ he knew

As his vision returned

That this was going fucking wrong,

And he watched as Tom danced

And seemed to hang in the air a moment

Like a levitating bear before he fell,

And he saw the guy with the Browning,

Or whatever it was,

And he could have again

And he tried,

But he couldn’t

Because he missed –

Five down, five to go –

And he flew back the bolt

And chambered another round

As he rolled to Tom,

Poor, Ever Ready but not this time, Tom.

And he wanted to scream,

Because he knew he was dead,

And then the fucking, bastard heli

Dropped down and fired more flares

And the madness continued

And the Serg lost it, totally,

And leapt up, weaving,

Spraying his recovered Sten,

Running to the bastard who fell back,

And when the Serg paused,

Like his sanity returned,

And he watched this play out

As something appeared in the air from nowhere

And Serg dived, but too late;

And suddenly the dawn grey lit up,

And both cars, the Serg, the bastard,

Suddenly they were lost in a ball of fire,

And he screamed, turned

And raised his rifle towards the fucking heli

And it was abruptly knocked aside

By Charlie, Bonny Charlie,

Who lay across him and

Shouted he needed to wise up,

And as he tried to sink into the ground

Charlie let go, slowly

And rolled up by Paulie

And surveyed the view.

He slowed his breathing,

Checked his rifle,

Forced himself not to look at Tom,

And crawled up by Charlie and Paul,

Studying the wreckage on the road,

Hearing the odd shot here and there

And multiple Pigs coming towards them.

He shouted to himself in his head,

Forcing everything from his mind

Other than getting his head in gear.

He scanned the mess on the road,

Ready to cover the guys dropping from the heli,

It all being too late and too light,

And wondered how long these kids lasted?

Randomly as he did his damndest to stay on task,

He remember how he’d watched the poor sods

Doing foot patrol in the city

And their NCOs constantly trying to

Get them to think 3D and look up,

Up where the snipers looked down;

Innocents abroad, or some such.

And then as they got the all clear

He wondered about Sall, Tom’s wife.

What was he going to say to her?

Who was going to tell the Serg’ partner?

He looked over at Tom as he lay there

And walking over, puzzled.

For a moment he wondered

If he was going mad,

If this was some fucking nightmare?

There was usually loads of blood,

Loads of fucking, squirting blood,

And in this half-light he saw none.

A medic came over, a kid like him,

Just a lot more innocent,

Less fucked in his head, he thought,

And whimsically he hoped he stayed that way,

And he took his arm and asked if he was okay.

And queried if this was an oppo or some such,

And he didn’t want to talk,

Couldn’t quite get his head straight –

Tom and the Serg, for fucks sake!

And all because of their sodding flares –

So he said no, first time out together,

And Charlie heard him and grabbed his arm

As Paulie took Tom’s balaclava off,

Then removed his, and he stared at Tom’s face,

And some of it was missing,

And he wanted to boak,

But pulled himself together,

And with Paul and Charlie,

Went back to their Pig,

And there they sat in silence

Waiting for some superior bloody officer

To give them orders,

And set their debrief time

Down at their station,

And he wondered if

He’d tell him to fuck off,

And ask his wank heli mob

What had happened instead?

He didn’t really think much

For the rest of the op,

Just Charlie upping and driving them back,

Some bullshit mil officer

Who spoke like he’d got a turd

Stuck half way down his throat,

Requiring his report

And him telling it like it was,

Including the stupid fucking flares,

And the turd-throat mainlander

Didn’t seem to like what he said

And he didn’t give a fuck,

And then he got into his old wagon

And drove back to the city,

And he kept rehearsing

What he’d say to Sall,

And the trip took forever,

But ended way too soon

As he pulled up by his house,

And then his mate Muz

Coming off duty

Drove him round to Tom and Sall’s.

As the front door opened to his knocking,

Sall was there with the twins,

Ready for school,

And she saw his face, and she knew,

And somehow she held it together –

Women are amazing like that, he thought –

And she called down her Ma,

Told her to take the kids on,

And the old lady knew too,

But she was her daughters Ma

And nodded, silent, white,

And shooed the kids out,

And he went with Sall to the kitchen,

And she started making a cup of tea,

A cup of fucking tea, for Christ’s sake,

And nothing was said until she

Put a cup down in front of him,

Just as he liked it,

And looked at him,

Stirring her own mug,

And he noticed randomly

That she was spilling it,

And it didn’t matter.

And everything

He thought he would say

Flew out of his head

To fuck knows where,

And he leaned forward,

Took her hands

And told her it was quick …

Just a few seconds of dancing …

Hell, it was instant!

And she took her hands away,

And she started to rock,

And he felt like doing the same,

And he told her everything,

Everything except the dancing,

And a bit of his face missing,

No need for that.

He told her what a

Fucked-up mission it had been

And she stared silently into his soul

As he spoke, words falling from him,

Rocking, and then she stopped,

Stood up and suddenly howled,

A howl like he’d never heard before,

And cleared the table with her arm,

Tea and crockery going everywhere,

And then started pulling

Everything off the surfaces

And was going for the shelves

When he got himself together

And grabbed her, and held her

As she tried to scratch him,

Pulled at his hair, kicked him,

And then suddenly slumped

And started sobbing,

Her whole body shaking,

Gasping for breath,

And he started crying too,

And a distant part of him

Wondered how his joining in

Was going to help Sall?

And then he knew it was okay,

But it wasn’t,

And Tom was dead;

Dead because of the fucking flares,

Dead, he had now worked out,

Because he hadn’t thought it through,

Because if he’d known there would be flares,

He should have known there would be others,

And the stupid, lovely sod had left them all,

Left them, in a cold, damaged world,

And Sall and the twins wouldn’t even

See him again, lying in his box,

Because part of him was

Somewhere in ‘Bandit Country’,

And slowly his sobbing stopped

And most thought left him,

And he and Sall clung to each other

Lost in shared agony,

A dark lashing sea of pain,

Wishing they’d be lucky and drown.

Thus it was, he knew not for how long,

And as she slowly subsided,

And was all sobbed out,

He looked over her shoulder

And saw her Ma standing there,

Silent, tears freely rolling down her cheeks

And he slowly disentangled Sall

And gave her to her Ma.

He walked slowly to the door

And found Muz standing there

Quietly waiting,

And they said nothing

As Muz put him in car,

Drove him home,

Forced some whiskey

Gently into his hand,

And listened to him ramble,

Saying little, topping-up often,

And at last he persuaded him

To take to his pit,

And despite everything he slept,

Slept the deep, dreamless sleep of the drained,

And woke with afternoon sunlight

Shining through his window,

And Pluff sitting by his bed,

And suddenly he remembered,

And Pluff saw it and nodded,

Thumping the floor as he did so,

And Muz and Charlie came in

And they all just sat in silence

Until he got himself together,

Pulled on some clothes,

Checked his rifle,

Clicked out the mag,

Topped it up automatically,

Returned it, eased the bolt a little,

Smooth and silent,

Put it down under his bed

And looked at his friends.

With no discussion

They all stood

And walked into the fading day,

Listening out for any gunshots

Bombings or sounds of trouble,

Off to whatever life handed out next,

But in all probability the Bot,

Or the Regency,

Or both.

Life goes on!