Cooperative bank, why so uncooperative?

I've always been a proponent of ethical banks, so as I planned to move to the UK, I decided to apply to the main ethical bank in the UK, "The Cooperative Bank".

I applied online and just opened the 2 letters they sent me to the UK address I specified. The two letters are from consecutive days.

The first one is hopeful, asking me for proofs of identity/residence:

 The next one, dating on the next day is less so, saying that "after careful consideration", they won't open an account for me.

This lack of cooperation has certainly annoyed me. It only exacerbates the typical "catch 22s" in the industry, where immigrating workers are supposed to provide one or more proofs of address in the UK before having a bank account, complicating the entry of skilled workers into the country.

Then again, I should not be surprised, as I had once before tried to switch to them in my Cambridge days, only to be told that they cannot create an account for me because my "name is too long".

For those entrepreneurs amongst you with an eye on the financial sector, this "service industry" lacks service so much that it's clearly ripe for disruption. Any bank that can provide decent service and ease the process of creating a bank account by accepting more foreigner-friendly proofs of legitimacy (e.g. proofs of address, bills and bank statements from their home country), would get a lot of business.

MH17 to 1984

I am to this very day still amazed and bewildered at how many people (many Russians, yet some west Europeans also), actually believe in the propaganda that the MH17 was shot down by Ukrainian SU-25s.

While sites like Pravda.ru and RT have removed all mention of these news after the event, several official and/or government-owned Russian newspapers still contain the news of the "AN-26 transport plane" shot down over Torez by the separatists of the ДНР/DPR ("Donetsk People's Republic") around 16:00 local time (14:00 UTC). The same place, the same day, the same time that the MH17 fell.

Never again have we heard of this mysterious AN-26, nor have the news disappeared or been "corrected". For some examples, see and take the effort of at last google translating some of the following articles:

http://itar-tass.com/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/1325017

http://ria.ru/world/20140717/1016409306.html

And even in obviously pro-Russian blogs, even going to cite Strelkov's site in VKontakte (Russia's Facebook) writing "We warned you - don't fly in our skies", eventually removed from the site.

http://topwar.ru/54473-an-26-ukrainskih-vvs-sbit-bliz-toreza-opolchency-zayavlyayut-i-o-sbitoy-sushke.html

Other channels like LifeNews, has tried to change the time of the event to 17:30 local time,

http://lifenews.ru/news/136801

and removed the original video, which cites 17:00 Moscow time (16:00 in Ukraine), to be seen clearly here from approximately 0:47 (if need be, ask a Russian-speaking friend to translate):


Welcome to George Orwell's "1984", today. Where people are brainwashed to believe that chocolate rations double from 8 grams to 4 grams and 2 + 2 is 5. I will probably not prove anything to these very people, those who I wish would read and think, and that's the most frightful thing. That today's propaganda still works just as well as it did in Nazi Germany and Communist USSR, even when the truth is within such easy reach.

So why did I bother?

Because I am a naive idealist, who selfishly writes for his own peace of mind...

Meryl's Master's ceremony speech

I couldn't be there for my former Master's student graduation, so I wrote her a speech that was delivered today by her other supervisor, Branka. Wishing her a fantastic future wherever she may go :-)

--

Meryl Varadinov is awesome.

A 5 minute speech will not do her justice, unfortunately, but we will have to make do.

By the way, I'm not her supervisor. Sasha, Meryl's supervisor, wrote this cheeky speech from the cold depths of Estonia, and he apologises profusely for not being able to be here to give it in person. Although, on second thought, he could have done it over Skype, especially since that company is from Estonia. Anyway, it probably would not have worked because of Murphy's first (and last) law - the toast always falls on the buttered side, and video-conferencing always breaks at the most crucial moment.

Anyway, back to Meryl. You now know she is awesome. However, some of you might not know why.

Meryl is awesome because she fiercely believes in great science. Great science is where it does not matter whether your p value is above or below 0.05, but what matters is the truth. Someone once said that in war, the first thing that dies is the truth. You could not substitute Meryl for war, because Meryl is too honest to compromise. You can tell from her sarcastic comments in the face of adversity, and in the face of her supervisors, like me (well, not me, but the guy in Estonia).

Meryl is awesome because she is greater than her work. She's not just a scientist, but she's also an activist for peace, democracy and all the things that matter in this world. Which means she's also an activist for lolcats. She's battled for truth in the streets of Sofia. That's in Bulgaria for those amongst you who are crap at geography, like her supervisor. If you are not crap at Latin as well, you will know that "sofia" means wisdom in Greek. And Meryl is wise beyond her years. She reads between the lines when she reads the news, and watches between the pixels when she watches TV.

Meryl is awesome because she keeps on getting better and better every day. By the end of this speech she will be uber-awesome. She's never stuck in one place, she absorbs knowledge and skills like a sea sponge absorbs sea water and water pollution. Except that knowledge and skills are good and sea pollution is bad. When she started her master's degree she could not program at all, but in a few months she learned to do it like a pro. She still has to earn the rest of the letters in "professional", but I'm certain she will be one of the most awesome programmers in the building by the end of her PhD.

Meryl is awesome because she managed to turn a bearded mad scientist project starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and analysis code filled with "mews", "woofs" and other animal sounds into a "great success". As Doge would say: Much Hippocampus activation. So Multiple Comparison Corrected. Wow. And that's even more amazing when you realise that Gwyneth Paltrow is on Meryl's most un-wanted list...

Meryl is awesome because of a 1001 more reasons. Yes, one thousand and one, not nine, as the speech is not written in binary, but in the decimal system. Anyway, you will have to make do with the above four reasons. Here's the abstract, which you always write at the end: Meryl is awesome because of her scientific integrity, her passion, her intelligence and her motivation.

Given how solemn and serious a graduation event is, her supervisor should have probably written a solemn and serious speech for her to "celebrate her merits and accomplishmens". Please read the bit between bunny ears with a posh British accent. Oi, you are not supposed to read this bit! Anyway, a serious and solment speech can't do Meryl justice, because she's not just well rounded and generally excellent. She's also awesome.

Now guys, what are you waiting for? Give her the applause she deserves.

Kill your dragons

Today I was back at my old school, the International School Hilversum. 10 years after my graduation I was to give a keynote for students who were graduating themselves.


Kill your dragons

Before I start, let me get this out of the way. I'm not the best person to give an inspirational speech to you. For one, I get awfully anxious in crowds. And especially because I see my life as more complicated than inspirational. Especially today.

You will surely understand what I mean when I tell you where I am from. I'm from Kiev, Ukraine. This last year has been tough on us. From the Euromaidan demonstrations last November to the current Anti-Terrorist Operation in the east, many innocent people have died. Holland has suffered too, since the atrocious downing of the MH17. Most of us know innocent people who have died. It would seem as if things can’t get any worse…

Uncertainty and change rule these days, and not only because of the mad things going on around the world. Many of you may feel lost, wondering what you will do with your diploma, your gap year, your career, your life. Some might be certain of where you want to go and how to get there. I hope I can speak to both of you.

You are probably wondering, how can this guy relate to us? He’s already finished university, has landed a job, he has it all figured out. I don’t now and I didn’t back then, when I was sitting where you are. So what can I give you then? All I can give you is my story.

I don’t come from money, though half my family are doctors. In the Soviet Union doctors earned rather little unless they took bribes. So my family were the poor kind of doctors. Growing up in Spain we became even poorer, up until I was 9 years old my parents and I slept together on a small mattress. I remember dreaming of going to University and saving my family, so I saved up my pocket change and gave it to my mother to put it in a savings account. I wish someone had told me to invest in Google then… My father, one hard step at a time, worked us out of poorness and things changed for the better, we then moved to Holland when I was 15. During my adolescence I had a myriad careers planned, from writer to doctor. Eventually I applied to Durham university to read Natural Sciences, since it was the broadest course I could do. But I also applied to Cambridge knowing I would not get in. Knowing this, I went to the interview wearing jeans, a leather jacket and sports shoes. I neither had a suit nor knew I should have had one, until I saw my elegant competitors. Surprisingly I got in, and doubted between doing cell biology and chemistry and psychology. Eventually, I stayed on for a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience, might as well try and find out why my brain works the way it does. I didn’t. So I found work as a postdoctoral researcher at the Donders Centre in Nijmegen. But I learned little about the brain, of which we truly know almost nothing. But I did learn that I did not want to be in academia, but rather to apply my knowledge. How, I don’t yet know…

Right now I’m where you are, at a huge crossroads. I might look stable, maybe even confident, but that is not how I feel. I feel vulnerable and that’s ok. I do not know my direction, but what I have learned gives me a compass. You have a compass too, and it should be your own.

Your compass has grown during these years of education. Hopefully you will have learned a great many things about languages, sciences and humanities. But much more importantly, hopefully you have learned to think better, to be critical of the world. To not take anything on face value, but to test if it is true. Philosophy, or “Theory of Knowledge” as they call it here is far more useful in the “real world” than any bit of knowledge. Because to learn facts is far easier than learning how to learn.

Today this is more important than ever, when everyone around you wants to convince you of something or get you to buy something. Every single thing a person says or writes sits on top of a fragile house of cards of assumptions and prejudices. My first advice to you, be *sceptics*. Be as critical of mainstream media as you are of conspiracy theories. Be as critical of the left as of the right. Be as critical of yourself as of others. Remember that we cannot touch the truth, and yet, we should try and get closer to it.

And getting closer to truth, you will start to reach to your true calling. This will be hard, it will be awfully painful and you will need to change to get there. Success is not an end, it’s a “path with a heart”, as Carlos Castneda once said. Don’t be afraid of the pain. It will reach you whether you like it or not. Joy, on the other hand, I have only experienced in the moments that I felt fearless.

Many of you will have seen or even participated in our Argentine Tango workshops some months ago. So you will know that my joy is dance. I found my joy when I was 23 years old at the behest of my best friend, and I had no idea of what it was like. The dance, the music, the embrace, the improvisation. I knew nothing of that, imagining exaggerated music and a rose in the mouth. Instead of cliches, what I found is a sort of “meditation”, a space without words or thoughts that is mine and mine alone that is simply present and feeling and love. I could have given in to the fear of looking ridiculous, feeling uncomfortable, I was so very shy I could barely ask a girl to dance. If fear had won, I would have never known this joy. A great composer, Anibal Troilo, once said “Tango awaits you”. Sometime you will find your joy, if it has not already found you. This is my second advice to you, find the *courage* to try new things, assume nothing, be brave enough to change your life for it.

And whatever you do, help those around you find their joys, whatever these are. Each one of you is different. You are privileged in experiencing so many people who are different from you, who hail from other countries, and have other beliefs or who feel differently. I told you to be sceptics, but this does not mean you should not be tolerant. I told you to not fear pain, but do not help create it. Don’t rush to judge a person by their skin, their wallet, their gender or their sexuality. I know what I speak of, one friend was called a liar and denied justice for being a woman, another friend in mind a man but in soul a woman hid her true nature, yet another’s friend skin made people say he was meant to pave roads rather than build dreams. My third advice then: *accept* and love them as they are, and accept and love yourself, even as you change.

Be tolerant, courageous sceptics, and you will change the world if you so wish. But remember, you can only do so when you embrace change yourselves. There is no other way to change the world than to change the world is to change ourselves. There is no shortcut…

Let me finish with a story from a Soviet film. The plot is simple, a descendent of Lancelot enters a town terrorised by a great three-headed dragon. As is usual for knights, he sets to rid the town of the dragon and save the girl. But the townspeople, instead of helping Lancelot, sabotage him. They give him a copper tray for a shield and a butter knife. They try to kill him with a poisoned knife. Against all odds, Lancelot obtains a sword, a balloon and a hat of invisibility from a handful of dissidents and slays the dragon. When he returns, the townsfolk excuse themselves before him. He tells them to kill the Dragon within themselves, to stand up for themselves. Instead they kneel before him. Frustrated, Lancelot walks into the snow, only to find the dragon alive and kicking, playing amongst the children. “Now the real fight begins” he says.

Kill your dragons.

Binary is for robots

I see a worrying trend online, of people who appear to see a binary world, where there are "goodies" fighting against "baddies". Naturally, it follows that if they classify one side as a "baddie", then the other side must be a "goodie". Let me take an example that is close to heart, given my roots, that of recent events in Ukraine.

Today this is most obvious when you see cultured people declare things like:

• "The United States is an imperialist warmonger [therefore] Russia is just defending its interests"
• "Western media is biased [therefore] I trust the Russian news more"

Both leading to...

• "The US and Western media say that the MH17 was downed by pro-Russian separatists [therefore] it must have been downed by the fascist NATO-led Ukrainian junta".

This does not compute.

I'm by no means a "supporter" of the foreign policy of the United States. But surely when two imperialist countries fight a cold war, it makes no sense that one of them must be "good and trustworthy" simply because the other is "bad and untrustworthy".

To put it in scientific terms, the two hypotheses (of "goodness") are not mutually exclusive. This logical fallacy comes from a false dilemma, a forced choice between two poles.

Similarly, when you see bias in mainstream media (yes, I'm looking at you, Fox News, Russia Today, etc.), why should you rush to poorly documented websites that are:

1. rife with conspiracy theories
2. have no credible sources
3. describe events in terms of "fascists",  "nazis", "juntas", etc.

Instead, perhaps try to find sources that are:

1. independent international agencies
2. bloggers who are on the ground at the events
3. in different languages if at all possible

And importantly, start asking yourself questions, some of these, for those who support Russia against the "annexation by NATO and the EU" are:

• Why is Russia's annexation of Crimea acceptable?
• How exactly were Russian people oppressed or hurt because of their language in Donetsk and Lugansk, or elsewhere?
• Why are the separatist leaders Girkin and Borodai Russian nationals, rather than Ukrainian, as well as many of their soldiers?
• Where do all the tanks, heavy artillery and rocket launchers that these men use come from?
• Why the noble Russian mainstream media post lies about crucified children, conspiracy planes filled with corpses (i.e. MH17) and spanish flight operators?

And a final note, this post does not mean that I approve of every decision made by either the EU, USA or Ukrainian governments, nor that I trust every Western media outlet. Nor does it mean I hate Russians (amongst whom I still have many friends), or any other nation.

All it means is that I oppose lies and imperialism in all its guises. It means that I believe Ukraine should decide its own fate, without the interference of any foreign power. It means I seek truth and peace.

English, motherfucker, do you speak it?

Communication, the critical skill of our day and age. Sadly, it suffers a fatal lack of clarity while showing no beauty whatsoever. Elegance is missing.

I could say education pays little attention to communication, but I would be (mostly) lying. Teachers do not ignore writing skills, they simply teach them dead wrong. We teach kids they must sound "professional" and "educated". We tell them that to appear intelligent, they must present their ideas to make sure only a handful of people can understand them. People fear and revere what they cannot comprehend. The elites of every profession speak their own secret language. Doctors, lawyers, economists, programmers, scientists...

Scientists are some of the worst. I would know, I am one. In the last 9 years I've read enough academic writing to know that reading academic writing is a one-way ticket to long-lasting migraines. It sins in making simple ideas complicated, describing them in confusing terms. Sometimes, reading an article, I wonder if the writer speaks English...



The same scientist who wrote the same article that reads like Hebrew or Greek will often, when you meet them personally, describe the same idea in simple words. Most academics can communicate clearly and simply, but choose otherwise because they believe they won't be respected if they communicate their ideas simply. Sadly, they are correct.

"You exaggerate!", you might exclaim. If you don't believe, find a few scientific abstracts and test each of them for complexity (e.g. using the Gunning Fog index, or the Writer's Diet test) to estimate how many years of schooling you need to read it and whether you will die of a heart attack reading it. Often, an abstract will require over 20 years of education (i.e. Elementary school + High School + Bachelor degree + Master + PhD + ...). Congratulations, dear scientific colleague, you made sure that even if scientific articles end up being available to the public (as they should be), they will never, ever be understood by anyone outside your field.

I know, I ask for the moon, men of letters. I ask you to be "concise and precise".

p.s. I'm not [always] a hypocrite :-)
Gunning Fog Index: 9.707 years of schooling to understand this blog post.
Writer's diet rating: "Fit & Trim" ("Lean" even on "Nouns" and "Prepositions")

ASN bank, the ethical (sic) bank

I'm a great believer in ethical banks. When I lived in the UK I repeatedly tried to join the highly ethical slightly unethical Cooperative Bank, but because of my exceedingly long surname, was denied entry. I'm not joking. I finally managed to switch from an exceedingly unethical bank (Barclays), to a fairly unethical bank (Lloyds). Still, that was not enough for me, so soon after arriving in the Netherlands, I switched to ASN bank, which I joined in April 2012, almost 2 years ago.

I've promoted ethical banking on my blog and Facebook because I believe it's one of the most powerful steps you can make to effect actual change in the world (put your money where your mouth is). However, my bank has been swindling me on International Charges, charging me €15 for transactions and being non-transparent about it.

How does this look? It looks something like this...

The total is displayed in this manner, but it does not mention that you will pay €15 more when you finalise the transaction by clicking "Verzenden" (Send in Dutch). The charge is effectively hidden.

I challenged this non-transparency with angry (I get annoyed when I feel something is unfair, but you can see that my letter is civil) correspondence to my bank:

and obtained the following reply:

The information to the charge is available, of course. 2 pages prior in a half-hidden link to an Adobe .pdf document in Dutch. Yes, it is a Dutch bank, but they do translate documents less important to their customers (see this for an example, and another, and some more).

As we speak, I prepare another letter ramming home the lack of transparency in the payment confirmation screen.

UPDATE (28/01/2014):

I sent them a response letter 8 days ago:

Still no reply, time to visit their Facebook page...

Occupy mass consciousness

Here is a brief thought in support and opposition to the Occupy Wall St. (and other places) Movement...

...so the good, wholesome kernel of the idea is right: The current wave of increasing inequality between the rich and poor can only lead to decadence and the erosion of happiness (and the economy too). Financial institutions now have an iron grip on not only the governance of states, but also on the possibilities and mindsets of people, much akin to the Catholic church, except that now the object of worship is money. Civil liberties are also being stripped away, and rights like free speech or assembly will soon have all but left. We do need to protest, if only to exercise these rights, but this will not be enough.

...the bad implementation of this protest is that a majority's wish (the 99%) being protested by a minority (e.g. only a 0.99%) will not be noticed. The Orange Revolution in Ukraine brought up to 2-3% of the population out in protest, and years later, it is merely a memory. So I believe, will be the Wall Street protests, unless they scale up to unprecedented levels, ones that a government could not blanket over, even with mass control of the media.

...but the ugly truth is that a protest is only a beginning. The financial world cannot simply be changed today by standing in the street shouting "we are the people". To change this toxic climate, it is necessary to squeeze them where it hurts. You guessed it: their pockets. We protest that we live in a consumeristic society, yet we can use our consumer power for the good for once by "voting" with our money against the unethical institutions we don't wish to endorse. A business that is squeezed this way, will have to adapt to the wishes of the populace, or perish a painful choking death. We must create financial institutions with ethics that stand proudly before profit, instead of crouching in the sidelines. So what's catch of this simple solution? It is that we must lead by example, and change our mindsets before we can expect the world to change for us... That, ladies and gentlemen, is the hard¹ bit.

^{1 Note: this might involve cutting up your credit card and foregoing retail therapy. Proceed with this solution at your own peril.}

Piping down the hangers wild, piping shirts of pleasant glee...

Inspired by a blogpost at Other Blog, I decided to fashion myself a clothes hanger made from galvanised steel pipes.

The first step is of course to obtain some pipes and some connecting elements. Do try to have them delivered to your home, rather than to your work, unless you enjoy the physical challenge and the bemused looks of complete strangers as you pass them by on the street... Luckily I do!

The next step is to assemble and clean your components, only to discover that they are marked with painted or relieved with industrial writing and vertical and horizontal lines.

Finally, assemble the rack...

...and decorate it with your elegant clothes.

If you are not entirely satisfied with the outcome, or if you are not quite that much into industrial fashion, stand by for Part II, where we shall decorate the rack with Mithril paint and mystical eldritch runes of eerie geometries...

"Normal" people and the normal curve...

I recently had a discussion about what normal people are. It reminded me of the incredible intolerance that pervades society, and for most of us is keenly felt from childhood in one way or another. Do normal people exist, then? My answer is maybe, but they're very few.

Why? The answer lies in a weird and geeky approach: Mathematics defines "normal" in terms of an average and probability of being there. Let's say that for each characteristic we imagine, we can draw a scale that ranges from something negative to positive, or bad to good (for simplicity, let's ignore times where there can be "too much of a good thing"). In our imaginary world, there is a majority of people in the good normal range, and a 5% of people who have a negative "difference" or fault. In the normal curve it looks like this:

In simple terms, for any one characteristic, the story looks like this. 95% "normal" and 5% "weird":

However, when we have more than one characteristic, things begin to become complicated. As we increase the number of traits, so do we decrease the number of people who are "perfectly normal" and who do not have at least one fault or weirdness. If we have barely 14 traits, the number of "different" people becomes greater than that of "normal" individuals...

...and once the number of traits hits 59, the tables turn, and it's the so-called "normal" people who are outstripped by the rest of us, the "weirdos". I'm sure we can find these 59 traits, or more (if you'd like to contribute, leave a comment :-).

The take-home message is that we should be tolerant of people's wierdnesses and faults, as well as our own. The inevitable result is that we'll be better and happier for it.

Nada más

"No quiero nada, nada más
que no me dejes, frente a frente, con la vida."
Juan D'Arienzo and Luis Rubinstein

The hall was filled with music and life. Nothing more.

Everything within was part of those two axioms, the dim light had become a mere sound and the dance revealed itself the essence of living. She stood stoic as a pillar, a stance of serene readiness only softened by a faint, but blindingly honest smile. I embraced her at the edge of the floor and stepped onto the solidity of wood, away from a carpeted floor that could hold the weight of D'Arienzo's beat no more. As I stepped down I felt, more than realised, that something had changed, as if my mind had been left behind, unceremoniously tucked away inside the shoe bag. Within me remained feeling, and the dewy voice of Alberto Echagüe permeated me. Nothing more.

"Cuánta nieve habrá en mi vida
sin el fuego de tus ojos!
Y mi alma, ya perdida,
sangrando por la herida,
se dejará morir.
Y en la cruz de mis anhelos
llenaré de brumas mi alma,
morirá el azul del cielo,
sobre mi desvelo
viéndote partir."

Following the song's tale, I bled my soul onto the dance floor, but curiously it was not lost, but uplifted by the emotion of this curiously tragic song. In short, I danced as if I were in love. Nothing more.

Dancing with Gardel

"Volver,

con la frente marchita,

las nieves del tiempo

platearon mi sien.

Sentir,

que es un soplo la vida,

que veinte años no es nada..."

Carlos Gardel

"The Mute" sings better every day. Yet no-one dances when the Thrush of Buenos Aires calls. He's probably rolling in his grave, his elegance twisted by a feeling of unfairness. Some say it is a sign or respect to not dance to the dead man's baritone, yet is it not sacrilege to let his memory fade in the milongas where he was an accomplished dancer. Let us speak with him then, echo his words with our hearts, their beat reverberating softly between our feet and the earth beneath.

So let him return, his forehead wrinkled, his temples silvered by the snows of time.

And let us feel, for life is but a breath, twenty years a trifle...

No carapace

I more than once heard people say, often proudly, that their experiences in love had led them to grow a thick skin. I've never understood why others regard insensitivity as strength and, even more often, emotionality as weakness. My belief is that there is far more courage in growing keener with each joy and pain we experience, and to open our heart all the more when we know we may suffer. Here's the expression of this belief:


No...

Carapace.
Spartan shield shed into chasm.
Pachyderm.
Arduous tusks, scab scratched off.
Ivory.
Charcoal rooks flew pawning coins.
Adamant.
Trumped by hearts, piked, clubbed to ash.

I've naught to hide beneath my pelt,
all walls forswear and ribs unsheathe,
cerise hood lift: this heart must breathe,
admit caress and wild whip's welt,

my sweetest seed shall don no husk.
Though lids may moor, put out the lights,
I shall not fall to mourning nights,
this Spanish Don won't turn to dusk.

Ketalar

Whatever was or was not confined by that svelte stream coursed its way under my skin, releasing its sweet body into my salted estuaries, sharp and scarlet by vice of their ferrous casket. Course uncaged, but body unblent, it travelled onward, gathering into a blister at the back of my brain, pressing the pillow as it flourished. There it negotiated the doors of my perception, and slid asunder the drapes of the stage, the dramaturge dropped his puppets about me, infused life but buried the edge glancing, gashing the depth of their eyes. Once alive, now waxen mannikins of taxidermied psyches, their skins seemed leathered, as my fingers felt, sliding, flowing over one another, gloves lubricated by cool lather. Not mine. Nor those foreign legs, limbs in exile.

Onwards floating, a hair's width above the bed, sails covered eyes and mast twisted, sinking the vessel and drawing living water to my loose lips. A gasp, savoured and spewed, a gulp of smog. I released it outside the window, from a modest pipe, whiffing beneath the tongueless chimney, a mere beacon for paper pigeons, pinions defiled yet safe from deflagration. Crows, cut-outs of deadly nightshade, nested in the smokestacks, distilling from soot some flat import as impinging as it was void, or slit the sky, shadow marionettes speaking hollow stories outside my Cave.

My sight shifted from item to individual, brief infinities lapsing before their forms sharpened, each stare stabilising a shaky world, deluding me into illusions of normalcy. Yet eldritch was my ensnarement in a slough of nowness, the past in ken and reach, but for a brigandine of reeds, an iron tent dissecting instant from reminiscence and future. I traced my life entire, but left it unpeeled, I'd flake away with the wallpaper of that chamber, eternally enclosed, a gap in time.

All flesh is grass

All flesh is grass. Krishna walks upon the lawn without one backward look, this is her garden after all. Her mighty steps mould, sometimes mangle the stalky fingers, carve on a track across the green, darkening it with sacrifice, then tinging it, eroding it into gold. No single glance back. Who ever does look at the steps one takes, the steps one steals? We cut our paths through the lives of others, chances we pluck before their vines can tangle us, slow us down, and before they can caress us, touch us.

We are so heavy, yet all flesh is grass. Our meaty leaves are built from breath, upon our masts live sails of web, round chutes follow the wind, bade us the vertical though we only ever walk the horizontal. So many windows in the dew, encased in hoary silk, interminable eyes pointing to heaven, reflecting it in Indra's net, echoes itself in each one drop.

But now her palm parts the web, she loves not spiders, their world entire her hand, but not for long, her fist closes their death over their black carapaces. Pregnant, they crack into caviar, cast their mesh once more, each egg reflecting one another and all without. Indra cackles.

Does the mailman ever mark his strides? Sometimes his letter carries a dearer fare, stumps chiseled from paper cuts, sharp words, and long, blunt embraces.

The third day Oath

Today is the third day, and neither wind nor rain have shaken the Amaranthine from its captivity. Indeed this morn, when I passed by, it hung torn between two greedy strands, each pulling her to itself. The avarice of the elements took their toll, voiding the flower of its aqua, yet failing in the quest to end its life, fortifying it instead, its petals hardened into a plate mail, guarding the heart, the scarce nectar within.

Thus it floated, a vessel of air whose soul one could not catch. Yet that was not my intent, instead, I wanted but to free it. I cut its ropes and posed it in a pocket by my chest, to warm it with my pulse. Those beats have been yours, now I have placed you in my crimson book to rest, let me now turn the page, an empty one I need this eve.

Gallows' flower

It was today that I saw it, within a window of the rusted bridge. It dangled from a Spider's thread, as a lone man hanging on gallows, a flower yellow as gall, condemned, yet its face turned towards Heaven. It does not rush to climb up Buddha's thread, but waits for the rest of us to grasp its wisdom, to entwine in its enlightenment. It was not clinging, but gently clasped by its faithful rope, gently strangled. Take my breath away, dear Daffodil. You are the troll of this my bridge, and my payment is thy risk, as my passage turns you, throttling you tighter, imbuing strength to this your death and straining this your link to life. I can't undo the harm, yet ask you to forgive me, sweet blossom, that I did not stop to tend to you, my karmic wheels forced me to carry on. Perhaps I was not meant to pick you, yet if the rain did not bid you fall, then tomorrow may be our day.

This eve, I stood by the mirror, alone on this side, but on the other holding on to you, breathing you. And as I remember your fragrance, my chest constringes, halting the flow of my life. I thirst for water, for your dew, a dying bloom too I am. Here, have the rest of my spirit, I still send you my breath.

Three grains of thought

The solid light was the drop that tipped this glass. An ice cube of impenetrable rays, filamentous, webbing within a trap for itself. It floated in the far corner of the room, which pointed outside, beyond the fragile surface of the room, but then it would change its mind and orient its angled digit towards me, accusatively.

Yet it was not my fault, the blame lay in those modest capsules holding three grains of thought: Hawaiian baby woodrose, passion flower and guarana, blended into a consciousness of its own. I had taken a couple, a glad one melting cozily inside my gut, fusing first delicately and then again, more violently, as their marriage bed contracted and crushed them, broke their body but freed their spirit, releasing their seed into me. It was they who impregnated me with these ideas, strangers to my waking mind, only familiar to my nightly wanderings.

The light melted again, its fibers now weaker, curtains that would not open, hiding the actual fabric forming my microcosm, but had they opened I would only see emptiness through and through. Let me turn my attention from this veiled mirror and onto something more appropriate for the occasion. Three candles, not the placid lake now at the corner of my eye, but roving rivers of surging life, rising knights, galloping nowhere, knowing no time nor destination but that which we may lend them, our thought bestowing them breath, one which when torn away returns them to servitude, to their physical slavery, their thirst for the balm beneath them, which they can never touch nor feel its sustenance, Tantalus threefold. But let us be merciful, return our eye to these our dancers, their ardent flamenco.

And let us dance ourselves, me and you, closely. Surrender to one another, then fall, by chance, a never-ending free descent, never culminating, not even as we lie rolling upon the floor. And as we climb the spiral stairs again, rising to the peak of the alabaster tower to fall longer still, but this time there will truly be no climax, no death to life, breath, motion, love. The joy outlived the convulsions that arched my body, ready to release its soul, an arrow into the firmament...

...it was the string that broke, the train of thought torn, the memory fragmented. That life twists itself together again where the past and future meet. I smell a rose-garden...

The anthill in my chest

Ants. Every corner sees their scurrying, their legs as if carried by some current flowing only for them. They run to the sweetness of my fruitful thoughts, and ever more surely as these finish rotting, fertilizing the next harvest. Yes, these adventurous thoughts turn sweet then bitter, as I try to delineate my freedom and trace its future, placing a crystal glass over it and edging it slowly along a heartless path to a breathless end. My torment does not last forever, as I let these mentations loose before they have time to dismember my soul, to let them feed upon the seed of my premonitions: my hopes and, yet more palatable, my frights.

What I see as the ants start crawling all about my skin and underneath it, twirling as lovers do under a duvet, is a landscape where the cobblestones don't know our steps, where the trees don't drink our breaths and where the night, spiderlike, does not spy our kisses with its myriad eyes, nor does it spin our gasps into tiny cocoons to be drunk fully later on. Drink, drink the bitter nectar of my dismay, enjoy it more in knowing its flow shall last only as long as I. I'll feed instead on that interminable vine that grows just out of grasp, let those aureate grapes mature a little more, to sink within reach. Reveal yourself sometime and join me, we'll eat them two by two, letting our ants make hospice in their sainted carcasses, let us exhaust them before we exhaust ourselves.

Firefly night

The wind curled, just as hair does, about the empty, unlit streets I eroded as I roamed under the blind sky. Its orchestra of natural song, so varied in tone and melody, would gain strength for what seemed minutes at a time before subsiding and again start with a whispered tune. Its growth made all the house elements come alive with sound: the creak of ancient wooden gates, the squeak of metal weathercocks, the stuttering of glass, the rasping of vegetation. Even animated life, praying aloud for respite from the touch of angry nature. Yet perhaps what I believed the joint orisons of the metropole of mice had rather different meaning -- nature's gentle way of asking for solitude while it discovered, lived itself alone. I'd not desist, only defy, a nutcracker of flesh and blood.

I pushed deeper into the dark, fashioning myself a mantle out of it, letting it soak up my fears. But my deepest fright remained impassive to the warmth of night: it lived too deep within my marrow, armoured in ivory cataphract and surrounded by red blooded plebs, kept in check by sinewy whip, enacting his every move. I dreaded to never see night again, unpolluted by the light we shine upon it to try see it more clearly. No. It must remain shrouded in itself - to see its mystery we must not violate it.

A hundred more steps brought me face to face with Night's answer, it told me I was wrong. It was the streetlights, those old-fashioned cages of glass and iron, windows to the four corners of the earth for the imprisoned firefly within, motionless, burning a steady flame that sought to illuminate nothing but itself. Its quiet burn made the night about it darker, truer still.

Life quietened about me, and my pace became the metronome of my musings as I found home again. When I set out, I thought I could defeat the night, make it miss me more than I missed it. Instead, I walk it every night, if not in action then in thought.