Catch the Un-Train

I have acquired a clearer understanding of myself in relation to this world. I aspire to reflect the world not as it is, but as it could be. 

Stepping back from this manhandled world to gain perspective,

Fortune amazes me.

For a heart and a mind that are curious and dissatisfied

that I have come this far 

To participate in creating

my own path

my own culture 

freedom

To secure consciousness

freedom

To protect all that is mine

my inheritance

all that I represent

To reject old explanations.

What a difficult task to upgrade 

this culture, my operating system,

bombarded with horror.

Every person’s consciousness 

bombarded relentlessly.

Symptoms of distress:

early awareness, begins with

Clinton’s sex-capades in grammar school.

Trade towers incinerate in high school 

NSA-ttack 

Creation of “global terror” 

Iraq genocide, 

people in cages,

sex and torture

once overseas, executed nextdoor

Enron 

Galactic terror

Militarize Afghanis

Swine flu outbreak— 

vaccinate all babies.

Swindling banksters

What is this virus, this multiplying sickness?

Drag all these files to the trash.

My operating system is crashing

Salvation?

Time to upgrade the operating system—

Let’s call the tech.

Tech says, Trash the old,

make room for the new,

download a new operating system?

But I have to empty the trash,

dissolve the dysfunction

get rid of the old: It must be erased.

What needs to go?

Ideology

Corporate support

Figure-heads

Political parties

Bureaucracy 

Authority

Consumer capitalism 

But why?

Because it’s flawed 

It’s very non-competitive 

It’s messy 

It’s poisonous

It wastes resources

It wastes peoples and cultures

It runs on stereotypes 

and low sample rates,

making everyone appear the same,

when the real value is our differences.

So what.

All that is

must be examined for viruses.

The old is yesterday.

The new is the unfolding,

constantly changing,

present—

living authentically, 

dismantling the false self.

Dissolve exterior pressure.

Look inward.

Relinquish the strangle-hold.

Remember

the little girl that is me.

The body holds more intelligence than the mind.

Who is me?

The me of which there is no other?

First, I ask,

who is the trickster?

The false self, who, 

like the old operating system,

must be trashed.

Difficult, it is,

but I create my paradise,

a privilege,

and an endeavor 

I share it with an Aquarian. 

Living in paradise

erasing the old,

minute by minute,

keep telling myself

nothing out there could ever compare

to the creativity so unaware.

Stirring beneath the false self

is awareness waiting for a god

like myself to awaken the dreamer.

Each day devoting god-like awareness 

to the breath, 

constantly quieting my critical clock-driven mind

back to the heart.

This is me in the present, communicating my heart, in limited vocabulary. 26-letter variable language—

could it be more constricting!

-Caroline Coleman

Thanks to Terence McKenna, Alan Watts, and Lenon Honor.

"Instant French"

Across from me is a bookshelf jammed so thoroughly with books that many have been placed horizontally in the spaces remaining above the vertical books.


One of these books is entitled Instant French. Wouldn't that be nice? Instant French. Open the book. Bam! Croissant. Read the first chapter. Zhoom! Snotty accent. Close the book. Voilà! Eiffel Tower!


Another book is called Macrobiotic Cooking for Everyone. What it really ought to be called is Macrobiotic Cooking for Everyone Who Loves Rice and is Willing to Part with Flavor.


Another book is an amazing interactive guide to birds—Western North American ones—and their habitats. it would be easy to make fun of this book, but I absolutely adore it. It comes with an electronic guide that you can press through and listen to bird calls by corresponding numbers. I bought it for my mom, who has been getting into identifying birds ever since she started leading tours at the local estuary. I am thinking about keeping it for myself, even though I have practically no knowledge of birds nor a reason to learn about their habitats. I just really like the interactive feature.


Another book on the shelf isn't really even a book at all. it's a pile of cards—not just one deck, but three. And not just playing cards, either. The first deck is a collection of yoga poses that you can do "on the go." I never use it, although I do enjoy the occasional yoga class. The next deck is, in fact, playing cards, a special Communist China edition that I bought in Chinatown with my ex-girlfriend's ex-girlfriend, who was visiting us for a week from back East. My ex-girlfriend wasn't even with us when we went to Chinatown. I bought the cards so that my ex's ex would feel comfortable purchasing something, but she never ended up getting anything, either way. The cards still have the plastic seal on. I already have too many playing cards. The final deck below the other two is a deck of Tarot cards. I've heard these were an invention of the 1930s, but I still can't help but feel a little mystified by the medieval imagery. I'm not even quite sure how you use Tarot cards. Whenever I "use" them, which is not too often, believe it or not, I just turn them over in response to a question. An example might be: "Will I pass this test?" If I turn over the Hanged Man, I might reasonably assume the answer is "No." One might also infer that the test will be fatal. It's hard to say, but the ambiguity is delightful. No one was ever mystified this way by the Magic 8 Ball.


Another horizontal book is Careers for Gastronomes and Others who Relish Food. At the time I purchased the book, which was probably around 2003, the advice it offered felt like real insider information. Now it all seems very obvious and slightly boring.


Another book is the Treehorn Trilogy, a very thick illustrated book for over-educated children. It was given to me by my ex-boyfriend. He once told me he had read it numerous times. I still haven't managed to get all the way through it. The book resting on top of this children's book is a sex-themed graphic art book called Grafuck. Get it? I've managed to get through that one numerous times.


The rest of the bookshelf is what you'd expect: a travel clock that hasn't been adjusted to reflect Daylight Savings Time; a picture or two of my sister and me at different stages in our lives; a very broken acoustic guitar; a pair of electronic stuffed-animal bunnies (the kind that walk with great difficulty and then do an epic back flip); an origami crane made out of magazine paper; my college diploma holder without the diploma; a Nantucket wicker basket with my dearly departed grandmother's name burned into the bottom. Oh yeah, and a few other random books.

-LM

"Natty Ice"

Last night, I wanted to get in touch with nature and feel real again. I started by lying naked on the ground of my apartment. Face down, I studied the grain of the wood my ribs pressing into the second floor. Hearing my neighbor below having sex made me realize these perfectly man-made strips of wood were not getting me any closer to touching mother nature's finger tips. I sat up and returned to my mattress. Tomorrow I will try again, I thought. I awoke with new hope that it was possible to feel alive in this city. I lie on the pavement for 15 minutes, staring up into the narrow view of blue and felt nothing.  I climbed a tree on Perry Street; I swung and gripped the unevenly textured branches and noticed the spray painted "X", meaning it would be cut down. I wasn’t getting anywhere.

I took the 1 train to 59^th Street and smiled — surely Central Park would hold everything I had been missing. I walk down the paths and past the lake full of rowboats. I see readers, coffee drinkers, and couples lying on top of each other. I am feeling better already. I see a nice lawn and decide to slip off my shoes and lay down. With my hands behind my head, I inhale. Breathing, feeling the grass in my toes and the sky above my head, I smell something awful. I push my body up to my elbows and looked around. An Upper West Side woman in Louboutin heels just let her little dog shit three feet away from my nature-loving session. I watched as she scooped up the dog, unlike the feces, and opened her bag, dropping it in just like the other material possessions in the large leather purse. Those heels walked away smoothly in a way only certain a woman does. Cunt, I thought. I was fully upright sitting in the huge grass field, feeling frustrated and defeated. As I walked back to the subway, all the optimism I had felt on my walk to the park had been replaced with the sight of a homeless man peeing off a rock;  nannies with babies crying in strollers, missing their own mothers that are too busy to take care of them. This was a disaster.

I passed the doorman, I took the stairs to the rooftop of my building. Maybe the ground isn't what I need, I thought. I stomped to the ninth floor, excited to swing the door open and feel the freeing sensation of the sky above me. It was almost sundown and the world had never looked better. I stood with my toes on the edge the roof. I inhaled once again with my palms facing up. Sure, I felt an adrenaline rush, and I had never stood on the edge of a building before. Don’t worry I wasn’t trying to kill myself — that comes later.  Anyways, I feel the air. New York and the lights are all around me, and I'm still not feeling in-touch with nature, just in touch with, well, being up high. The only thing making me feel alive was the thought of my foot slipping. A person coughed behind me. I turned, he was putting out his cigarette. He smiled, I smiled. He opened the door and was gone. I stepped down onto a table, jumped back to the gravel, and retied my shoe.

Lying on my mattress again, I sunk my head deep into the feather pillows and thought of what drives me to live—what makes me scared. If that fear is from nature, I must find it.

I woke thinking of water. I sprinted down Charles Street, past Washington Street, and onto the highway. The freezing air burned my lungs. I had neither a jacket nor the sweatpants from Grossmont Center that my mom purchased because she loved the five-dollar deals at the store with singing animals at the entrance. The faster I ran the more I thought my bra was going to snap off from how hard my heart was pounding. I ran past the West Side highway and onto the astroturf. What the fuck is this? Astroturf? Really? I swear to fucking God... 

I turned and ran onto the pier. I can’t get away from it. It was winning. But the wind was so strong that I knew maybe this time was different. I felt the uneasy planks of wood beneath my tennis shoes swivel with each step. The Hudson River was murky and brown. The waves were violently pushing into each other, slamming into the pier and then back together again. I wondered what it would feel like to be that powerful. 

New Jersey was staring at me and I was glaring back. I thought of the spray tans and gym memberships. I sat on the ledge watching my feet dangle. I thought of porn magazines and beauty pageants. I felt the bleach in my hair and licked my corrected teeth. Nothing natural exists anymore, except birth, death and sex—and all of those have been objectified and materialized. I thought of my future daughter and how I’d never want this world for her. She would be an object, and I would make her into one everyday. I slipped smoothly into the water. Unlike the violent waves crashing, my body seemed to melt into the ice water and liquefy into an orgasm of colors and shapes—and then calm darkness. I always did like nighttime.

—CBF

Current Events

Poetry for you and you.

Current Events

By Liz (and a little from Lulu)

Today I fear Obama

I drank my chai tea too fast

He is much like a llama

Street dust stuck to the coffee shop carpet

Fortune, fame, and fury

Never paid for my caffeine

are making my eyes blurry

typing to distract myself from myself

I’m in Love with the Bourgeoisie

By Liz

How curly tendrils

Make me squiggle in my seat

Now I know defeat

Just a Stopover

By Lulu

I walked past your house

The dog shit was still intact

But our love long gone

Blind

By Liz

Although they are green

My eyes remain unseen to

You, now they are blue

Text Message

By Lu

My pocket vibrates

Your boredom is my pleasure

Pieces of your day