To all of you who read the pieces I write, thank you. Writing is a solitary thing and the process sometimes feels like being locked in an echo chamber. It makes a real difference knowing that at the end of the process you are going to read the words.

I sincerely appreciate your interest in my work.

A comment or hitting the like button reminds me that we share this process so don’t be shy.

Have a stupendous day.

Mike

In some near place of interminable wakefulness I walk the long grey shore of sleep, in some near place, insomnia. There where I wear my tongue as a tie pin, I wear it there since I have no further need of it.

Tongueless dialogues curl ceaselessly about me, strange voices, multitudinous waves beat a staccato indictment: you shoulda, coulda, didn’t; shoulda, coulda, wouda; didn’t, widn’t, isn’t. It is a brutal beach on which to wait for the dawn. It is not all froth and foam.

A white bull emerges from the waves and walks along the beach shrouded in soft mist that seems to sway just above the undulating waves. My mind begins to settle at the surreal beauty of this scene. I see Salvador curl and smooth the ends of his moustache with both hands as he sits lotus on an anteater while Marcel Duchamp descends a staircase not smoking a pipe and with theatrical flair extracts a pair of gold rimmed spectacles from his inside jacket pocket and throws them far away into the sea where a colossal, gilted faberge egg erupts from the waves and floats like a gleaming sun. He repeats the process and becomes a constantly throwing glitch.

Then, a movement to my right twists the ribbons of mist into a violent vortex and a minotaur armed with a curved dagger breaks the curtains of mist and thunders towards the bull.

The ground shudders. The tawny beast has the bull’s neck locked in its left arm and looking into it’s eyes it draws the knife across it’s throat and blood streams down onto the beach and turns the crashing waves pink. He lets the white body of the bull slump into the surf where it is rolled then swallowed by the sea. The minotaur turns and faces me. My mind runs but my body stays. Face to face with the beast I gape into the onyx pools of his eyes and find there, my self. The restrained anger of 50 years unleashed. The unspoken frustration at people’s unthought words swallowed for the sake of peace sits deep within, waiting, for years, decades, a lifetime, to rise up and then I smile, turn around free of thought of consequence and with the sun warm on my skin, I nudge myself awake.

So I slip to a different consciousness of crumpled bedding, cold dog’s noses and crows screaming outside and find myself returned to the world where Salvador is dead, anteaters are a continent away and bulls are slaughtered on an industrial scale for us to eat. We do not face bulls in any form except along the shores of our dreams. In some near place where we are centuries away from ourselves.