Top.Mail.Ru
close
? ?
Judas Carver
17 June 2018 @ 06:31 am
"...when the whole thing comes crashing down, don't ask me why."  
↓






The car crumpled like a paper rough draft in a frustrated writer's hands. So much so, I felt the back seat hit my spine through the driver's seat as the windshield shattered in a kaleidoscope of highway colors. The crash was so loud as to be silent, like my surprised vocal chords— too shocked to permit a scream egress. I'm sure I died. But all evidence indicates I didn't.

I've never had anything like that happen to me. While I was driving on a long, Oklahoma freeway, a flash of a reality that didn't actually come to pass washed over me like bucket of ice water being dumped over me. So real, so vivid, I had a panic attack. Thankfully, the woman in my passenger seat immediately sensed something wrong and gently touched me in a soothing manner. Amazing what such a gesture from a female can do.

I briefly explained to her what happened.

She replied, with utter sincerity:

"Maybe it happened in a parallel reality. I'm glad it wasn't this one."

Maybe it was. Maybe it was a manifestation of my confusion at a world that, after only 45 years, I don't remotely recognize; a world so changed, twisted and mad that I find myself unable to watch movies made after 1950. That's an era that ended before my parents met, let alone had me as a resident. Maybe it was Death reminding me it's always there— waiting. Especially since he's passed his skeletal fingers by my cheek more times than I care to recount. Maybe it was all of them in some surreal configuration as if painted by Hieronymus Bosch.

Regardless, all of that ran through my thoughts faster than it took to type it by what can only be described as glacially slow by comparison. Regardless, I went quiet for a heartbeat, then said:

Me, too.

Then crossed myself.

Silently praying for whomever it may have been.




Ω
 
Saddle up
 
Judas Carver
10 June 2018 @ 02:59 am
"Listen as the wind blows across the great divide..."  
↓










I still have the message from her saved somewhere. It was so succinct, accurate and heartbreaking that I couldn't possibly delete it entirely.

It was simple. All it said was:

"I felt like I was watching you die."

She was absolutely right. Had I stayed in Philadelphia, I'd be on a slab in some locker with - at best - a handful of people debating whether or not they wanted to drive to the heart of urban blight to identify the corpse. I'm sure the other three guys shot dead on my street experienced the same (insofar as the dead experience anything).

I think she loved me. I do. Maybe she still does, in some way. At the very least, she never failed to show me she cared. That's more than I can say for most of my own family. Speaking of which—

My dad met me at some trendy microbrew place that had me feeling like I was eating Denny's food in its own parking lot. I flatter myself that I understand people (in the aggregate) more than most yet I'm still constantly amazed at their terrible choices. I know; I'm one to talk, right? Regardless, my dad talked about guilt and regret. I suppose it's the two things we've always had in common. He also mentioned how he realized my mom's family (and tacitly my mother, also) was as dysfunctional as his was. In my signature style of "beat you to it", I gave evidence that I'd solved that particular riddle a decade or more earlier. I very diplomatically added the two of them were together for entirely unhealthy reasons. I no longer cast stones at that, though. As I age, I increasingly am left with the sense everyone does. I'm hoping that's the cynic in me. But I doubt it.

I'm still overweight. Depression added 105lbs to me but I've been lifting 6 days a week at a gym and no longer smoke like an oil fire. Nor do I drink much, for that matter. I think I look better but I get the sense any female under 30 sees me as a fat, old man that can't give up his biker past. I try not to let it bother me since worrying what women under 30 thought is what fucked my life into the ramshackle carnival it's become. Forgive my impolite honesty.

I barely sleep anymore as constant thoughts of the house I left, along with the many possessions - both replaceable and not - torment me. Admittedly, the advice I got to "just lock the door, leave and never look back" was probably for the best but I'm uncertain it'll ever feel that way.

I was voted "most likely to succeed" in high school, if you can believe that. I've written two books. They don't sell well because they're True. I use their existence as a point of pride, however. I still blog regularly, but at a different site. I tell men how to avoid fucking up as badly as I have. It helps— me, if no one else. At least I've done something lasting.

On that note, there's a woman that found my stuff and has been hitting me up for advice re: her and her man. She's a good egg and actually listens so I indulge her. I do what I can and it seems to help. She mentioned - at one point - how she feels punished for "being responsible"; 31 (I think; never ask a woman her age) and no kids. I get the sense it's killing her, though she hasn't admitted such. I don't know her well enough to admit how many (and often) women I've raw-dogged - whether I was drunk or sober - in hopes of knocking them up and giving myself a reason to stop squandering what little good I have remaining in me. I gave that behavior up, by the way, because it's bad. Understandable, definitely. But bad.

Well, I'm entirely too sober to continue so I'll close here.

Goodnight.

God bless.
 
1 rider | Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
22 April 2015 @ 02:17 am
"Took my time; took my chances..."  
↓







I can't possibly confess how many mistakes I've made over the past decade.

Not because I'm unwilling.

Rather, because they're beyond counting.

How many droplets in a hurricane?

How many grains in the Gobi?

So innumerable, so heavy, that I ran.



Just packed my old INS dufflebag with a few clothes.

Locked the door behind me.

And left a house full of sadness and a dozen empty whiskey bottles.



Where will I end up?

I can't say.

I've no idea.

For now, I'm in Oklahoma.

On the second floor under a sky so big and blue it'd make an atheist believe in Heaven.

I've lost 11lbs; losing more everyday.

I don't drink or smoke a 10th of what I previously did.



I hate many of the choices I've made.

I carried a lot of guilt here with me.

But each day gets me closer to forgiving myself.

And I pray those I've hurt or neglected find their way to forgive me, too.

If they don't:

I'll accept it.

It's their right; I'm not blameless.



I may never fully get back on my feet.

I may rise higher than I ever did.

But, either way:

I'll have gone down fighting.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
 
2 riders | Saddle up
 
Judas Carver
23 January 2015 @ 11:20 pm
A year and a day...  
I'm coming home.

More in a couple days.
 
 
Mood: relieved
 
Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
22 January 2014 @ 04:18 am
"It's a question of time 'til you're mine and you'll learn"  




So I discovered something.

I'm terrified of myself.

I hid behind so many things throughout my life so that the power deep within me would never emerge.



Then, when everything fell apart, I started drinking and smoking.

Then put on a lot of weight eating shitty food.



I thought it was depression.

It was, to a point.

But, really, it was fear.

Abject terror, in fact.



See, now - with everything gone - I was free.

I could let everything that was inside, out.

And I couldn't face it.



I didn't know what good or harm it could do.

So I drowned it again.

Weighed it down.

Burned it up.



Yet, still:

Behind the tired eyes.

The aging face.

The gray whiskers.

I see it, snarling at me, in the mirror.

It wants out.



I don't know if I can cage it anymore.

I don't know if I should.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Black Sabbath - Voodoo
 
3 riders | Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
18 January 2014 @ 11:18 pm
"In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings..."  
I just learned a man I treasured greatly [though never met] passed away late last year.

So, with a heavy heart, I say:

God bless you, Colin Wilson.

Travel on & travel well.



Never, not in a million years, would I have thought I could feel so deep a loss for someone I'd never Truly known.

But then:

Perhaps, in a way, I did.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
 
Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
16 December 2013 @ 11:21 pm
"You were my road house; a little shelter..."  
It's hard to climb out of the bottle.

The glass walls are smooth and slick.

And the bottom is gentle with liquid comfort:

An oak-barrel aged, pleasantly burning, amniotic fluid.

In which I am everything and nothing.

An all too appealing Hell.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Corinne West & Kelly Joe Phelps - Whisky Poet
 
2 riders | Saddle up
 
Judas Carver
16 December 2013 @ 10:17 pm
"Gone the complicated things; resting tired wings"  
She tells me she still reads my words.

I tease her, saying:

How could you not?



She laughs and replies:

"I still can't listen to your voice.

Unless I want vivid dreams."



It's a pattern in my life, no doubt:

Like a strenuous work-out.

Like the stone causing ripples in a pond.

Like hard liquor imbibed.

My impact is greatest once I'm gone.








Whisky Poet - From 'The Promise' by Corinne West.

Four dozen roses
Blue lights in Georgia
Dressed in captivating eyes
With that denim on your thighs

Hey Whiskey poet of the backbeat
Ah the streets they turned to sand
I took the night, I took your hand

I see your colors
You took some chances
How the silence is your friend
As will I be in the end

Oh, the wind
Has hushed me once again
Gave a dream of you

You were my road house
A little shelter
Gone the complicated things
Resting tired wings

Tell me a secret some buried treasure
No way to dream away the dawn
Nor the morning with her song....

So this is this And then there's that
May the lonely all be blessed
While you run wild around my chest

Oh, the wind
Has hushed me once again
Gave a dream of you

Rock my soul
Reach for me once more
Just a dream of you

In this circus flags are waving
Ribbons fill the ocean air
Still the crow sees from the branches
I pretend that shes not there
The jester and the juggler
built this trapeze just for you
Tiny dancers light the lanterns
To the bright and ancient moon

Oh, the wind
Has hushed me once again
Gave a dream of you

Rock my soul
Reach for me no more
Just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream
For you





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Corinne West & Kelly Joe Phelps - Whisky Poet
 
Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
28 November 2013 @ 06:37 am
"The wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face..."  
Its cries somehow manage to pierce through the ambient city noise.

I spot it as I'm walking through my impoverished neighborhood.

In my pocket is the cash from a paycheck that's so small a man my age should be ashamed of it.

Literally half the clothes I'm wearing were gifts from others.

Look at me:

A perambulatory Goodwill.



I hear it cry again.

This time I spare it more than a glance.

It's a tabby cat.

[I think; I'm not a feline expert.]



It's drenched.

Pitiful.

Cold.

And hungry.



For a brief moment, I consider snatching it up.

Trying to take it home with me.

If for no other reason than to let something in this city feel loved.



But then the Truth hits me:

I'm drenched.

Pitiful.

Cold.

And hungry.



So I leave it.

I leave it to cry— for both of us.

I leave it to its fate.

In the hope that it finds masters more generous than mine.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy
 
1 rider | Saddle up
 
Judas Carver
25 November 2013 @ 05:29 am
"There are really no words strong enough..."  





Sex, like all weapons, is neither good nor evil.

It's the motivations of its wielders that make it so.



Sadly, just about everyone on the planet has an idea of its power.

[In reality, they haven't even glimpsed the True power it has, but that's for another entry on another blog of mine.]

Regardless, sex is wielded to achieve a purpose.

By businesses to make money.

By most women to get love/validation.

By most men to feel empowered.

And by classifying sex with increasing frequency [more than any era previously] as a tool:

Its greatest strength is hobbled.



Having made it what a hammer is to a carpenter rather than legs to a runner:

The deep, integral part of humanity it is has become almost disregarded.

The bonding, communicative (on multiple levels) properties it once possessed fade further and further away from societal consciousness.

So much so that, not only do sex and love seem unnecessarily paired, they have become nigh on mutually exclusive.

This is the very definition of tragedy.



No doubt, the best sex anyone has had results in one of two outcomes:

1} For men = Battling the desire to sleep afterwards and anxiously awaiting awaking next to his lover.

2} For women = Hoping, regardless of the foolhardiness behind the desire, to have been impregnated out of pure desire to see the fruition of her lover's seed.

Both wishes mentioned above are investments that should not be taken lightly.

If anything, they signal that things are progressing as they should.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Scorpions - No One Like You
 
3 riders | Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
12 November 2013 @ 03:16 am
"...you just laughed when I begged you to stay."  




“I've been paying more attention to the mating game between men and women.”

She tells me this on the phone.

But I nod, anyway.

She can't see it; she feels it, though.

No doubt.



“I suppose it's because I'm entering the Crone period.”

Although I can feel her smile as she says it:

I can't tell if she's fishing for compliments.

Or simply stating a fact.

Regardless, I merely agree.

Saying:

The best one can do is accept aging with grace.

However difficult that may be.



Make no mistake:

I wish her no ill–will.

I harbor no animosity.

But I am not – have never been – one to give false comfort.



Her youth is gone.

Her fertility – close behind.

Truth be told, I can only imagine how that must feel.

To go from such power – as a young, beautiful woman—

To ever–increasing obscurity.



Now, she is certainly not without her charms.

But, in the cold, winter moonlight:

They are not – cannot be – comparable to what they once were.



To be Truly honest and fair:

I feel somewhat similarly.

I look at pictures of me, taken not even a decade ago, and it seems I've aged 20 years in 8 or less.

Worse yet, I mourn – as many do, I'm sure – not seeing all I had.

Until it was gone.



There was a time, not long ago in fact, that I was upset about all I missed out on in the realm of romance.

But, Truth be told, that's hardly a glimmer, at this point.

Instead, I lament and regret being forced into a mold I was not born to fit.

Listening to too many voices not my own.

While listening too little to mine.



[This is not to say that I feel I was cheated of the natural rebelliousness.

Rather, that what I was forced into was the lie.

As opposed to railing against solid, useful wisdom.

Though very few in number, there are directions I refused to follow that proved to be valuable, to say the least.

So I regret not following certain dictates, also.]




I heard a saying recently that struck a deep, somber chord within me:

“Hell is meeting the best man you very well could have been.”

I can't say I disagree.

In fact—

I wish I could.

Or, better yet:

Say the thought fails to terrify me as much as it does.






Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Black Sabbath - Solitude
 
Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
08 November 2013 @ 04:13 am
"I don't care about the sunshine, yeah, 'cause..."  







I once called LJ "home".

That statement, and the feelings behind it, remain unchanged.



I've been spending a great deal of time on my other blog.

Since it gets 100x more hits than this one.

However, I've looked at it more as a journey to investigate new horizons.

And, like countless travelers before me:

Found that I miss where I began most of all.



I'll be posting here again with greater frequency.

God willing, very soon.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Ozzy Osbourne - Mama, I'm Coming Home
 
2 riders | Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
11 October 2013 @ 04:54 am
"... 'til that train runs outta track."  




He’s one of my best and closest friends.

I call him the “Ace of Diamonds”.

Because the pressures of life placed on him have been extreme, to say the least.

Thus, have hardened him to a degree I’ve rarely seen.

Needless to say, his reaction came as a bit of a shock.



We hadn’t seen one another in quite some time.

So, when we caught up at the bar, the conversation was wide and deep.

At one point, I mention that I know I can be acerbic.

Tough to deal with.

Not to mention overbearing.

But I’d never hurt a friend as loyal and good as he.



It was then his eyes got misty.

He said:

“Oh, I know guilt is something that doesn’t come easy to you anymore.

So don’t think I don’t appreciate you saying that.

And certainly don’t get the impression I don’t notice.”



See, having a family that took credit for all my successes -

Yet left me with any blame that should surface -

Taught me to disregard criticism.



Having a family that felt everything I did was wrong or misguided -

Taught me to think more than twice about the concept of “shame”.



See, “tough love” only works when there’s something to contrast it.

Otherwise, it’s just being an asshole.



Now, as far as guilt goes:

My mother’s womb gave me life.

Only to murder her, years later.

And ain’t nothin’ gonna top that.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: Black Stone Cherry - Can't You See
 
Saddle up
 
Judas Carver
11 September 2013 @ 07:28 pm
Yes We can!  
Now I see how he got the Nobel Peace Prize:

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

- George Orwell








Ω
 
 
Mood: amused
 
Saddle up
 
 
Judas Carver
13 August 2013 @ 06:59 am
"And you got high on every little game..."  




As old as I am and for as many women I've had in my life:

I've only had three official girlfriends.




See, the wise know:

What sex is for women, commitment is for men.

Making oneself vulnerable in deepest possible way.

Making oneself open to be nothing more than a conquest.

Making oneself, potentially, an accoutrement of status rather than a valued possession.




Sexual acquiescence and emotional investment are the respective coins.

And, from time to time:

Basest avarice afflicts us all.





Ω
 
 
♪ ♫ ♪: The Civil Wars - The One That Got Away
 
2 riders | Saddle up
 
 
 
BERJAYA