Experiment V

Erlend Mork

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

Maya Angelou

Getting Mentally Prepared

It won't be long before I start another round of treatment to try and get rid of my Hepatitis C. As I've posted before I've gone through the treatment once already and didn't beat the virus. This time around they are adding a protease inhibiter to the standard Inteferon and Ribavirin. From what I understand the triple therapy is twice as hard as the course of treatment I went through the first time, and the first time was really super hard for me.

Before I started treatment the last time, I got myself all geared up and ready to beat the disease. I was super positive and all gung-ho. "I'm gonna beat this thing, just wait and see." Then after 48 weeks of increasingly good test results, bam, they weren't good enough and the virus started replicating again. I was so upset and even embarrased. Embarrased because of all the talk I did about how I was beating it and all.

This time I'm having a really hard time getting into the right frame of mind to make it through the 48 weeks. I know what it's like to get let down when it doesn't work. I keep telling myself that I really don't have an option. I've got to try it again. Still, there's a part of me that is doubtful. I wonder if I should really put myself through all that again. What if it doesn't work again this time?

I guess I will try and think of the treatment as a battle between the bad virus thingys and the good medicine thingys...The virus thingys having holed up in my liver and the medicine thingys trying to get in and destroy them. A bit simplistic I know but it worked for me the last time. When you're too sick and tired to get out of bed it's best to keep it simple in my opinion.

I was actually in bed thinking about all this and couldn't sleep, so I got up and started writing. I think now I've exhausted all my thoughts about the treatment. At least for tonight.

Enjoy Life...

Dead Letter And The Infinite Yes

I found a letter it read

"Our existence has serious side effects"

Turned on, turned on the television

It's telling me the world is collapsing

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I'm hearing whispers of an infinite yes

And I don't know why it is

Our bodies are dead, why you look so sad?

And my therapist said

"We've evolved through a series of accidents"

There's been talk of chemical imbalances

Restless sense of detachment, nausea and or violence

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I'm hearing whispers of an infinite yes

And I don't know why it is

I feel it coming, I think it's real and significant

I think I think I think a little too often

That's what my therapist said

We're alone in this wilderness

Left to choke on the pills and to feed on the viruses

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I think it's coming and it comes so fast

I'm hearing whispers of an infinite yes

Our bodies are dead, why you look so sad

Our bodies are dead, why you look so sad

Wintersleep

Garden Of Exile

In the garden of exile,

You can never leave,

Apparently there's a back gate,

But I just don't believe it,

It's designed in such a way,

That each path eventually,

Leads you back to where you started,

In never ending aisles,

Walking

In the garden of exile.

In the garden of exile,

The exile sleep all day,

A flock of birds crosses the sky,

And the gulls the other way,

I rest my hand,

In the cool of the shade,

There's nothing but a humming,

As it crosses the tile,

In the garden of exile.

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here.

In the garden of exile,

Our fathers built,

Statues of all the nation's heroes,

In the tops of the hills,

Everything's done before us,

Everything is will,

The future is the past,

There'll be no thinking for a while,

No thinking in the garden of exile.

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here,

I'm only half here.

Toby Martin

Gianluca Nespoli

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow-

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand-

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe



In Your Skin

Lifehouse

The Man Who Planted Trees

In a gentle way you can shake the world.

Gandhi

I saw an extraordinary film about the life of Elzeard Bouffier, a humble shepherd who turned a wilderness into a lush forest. In a lifetime spanning two World Wars, while madmen killed each other for worldly power, this individual quietly and anonymously brought his world back to life, planting one acorn at a time. He not only created natural beauty, but contributed to healing an entire town that had fallen into despair?one man, working gently, living day to day seeding love wherever he went.

Each of us has a forest we can plant to bring our world back to life. Our trees may not be spruces; they may be children, songs, art, ideas, massage, repairs, writing, or any other gift that comes to us and through us.

What impressed me most about Elzeard Bouffier was the humility with which he conducted his forestry ministry. He was silent most of the time, he did not seek acknowledgment and never asked anyone to follow him. He simply knew what he had to do and went about the business of doing it.

I met Scott and Helen Nearing, the famous couple who initiated the back-to-the-land movement in the 1930s. Although the Nearings had well-paying jobs and comfortable city lives, they moved to the mountains of Vermont, grew organic food, heated with wood, and nurtured their land. At the time, they were laughed at and criticized. Now they are considered pioneers and virtual saints. I asked Helen, “How do you feel now that so many are doing what you began? ”

“It’s wonderful, ” Helen answered, “but that’s not why we did it. We did what we had to because it was right for us. If no one else ever followed, it would have been just as right. ”

What is your forest? How can you bring your world back to life? Begin today, one acorn at a time.

I pray to restore my world with color and beauty.

I bring my world to life.

This meditation is an excerpt from Alan Cohen's meditation book, "A Deep Breath of Life".

Where The Sidewalk Ends

 There is a place where the sidewalk ends

And before the street begins,

And there the grass grows soft and white,

And there the sun burns crimson bright,

And there the moon-bird rests from his flight

To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black

And the dark street winds and bends.

Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And watch where the chalk-white arrows go

To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,

And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,

For the children, they mark, and the children, they know

The place where the sidewalk ends.

Shel Silverstein



Street Song Serenade

A Second Chance

How many journal posts have I started by saying how long it has been since the last post? It's funny....but I'm going to have to do it again. It sure has been a long time. I have momentous news though and I thought I'd do a blog post.

My gastroenterologist is going to let me go back through the Interferon and Ribavirin treatment for my Hepatitis C. I came very close to getting rid of the virus when I went through the treatment the first time. However, if even one of the microorganisms is left it will quickly start to replicate again as mine did. This time through the treatment the doctors are adding a protease inhibitor called telaprevir. It's supposed to have a very high success rate and I'm feeling very, very hopeful. I feel the best psychologically right now that I've felt in a long time. I feel like I've been given a second chance and I have some motivation back. Now, as I look back, I realize that I've just been drifting through life not really caring about things. I knew I was dying and that idea consumed me.

Along with the constant thoughts about dying I have had a sense of shame about having this disease. I have felt that when people hear that I have Hep C, they think I must have been doing something shady or nasty to catch it. It is true that I could have been living with the virus since the 80's when I was into intraveneous drug use and shared needles. It's also just as possible I caught it by sharing razors with a lover I think might have been infected back in the 90's. Regardless of how I might have caught it, I have a second chance now of getting rid of it.

Erlend Mork

Gianluca Nespoli



Andrzej Radka

Full Moon In Gemini

It was a clear crisp night for this full moon. It really was pretty. I've been struggling with how to write about what I've been going through the past few months. I'm having a hard time dealing with this whole death thing. It really is more than just that. It's the fact that I'm so dissatisfied with things in my life and I stay so bored all the time. I will be okay and maintain a sense of balance for several weeks and then, Pow! I say "fuck it," get trashed, and try to kill myself. I believe deep down I'm thinking that I'm going to die anyway, why not just get it over with. I think I need a therapist!

I hope you are enjoying the photos and song lyrics and stuff that I've been posting. I may start writing some short stories on here or something. We'll see...

Enjoy Life!

Katerina Lomonosov

Andrzej Kcluk

Czech Professional Photographer

Jan Kruml

http://www.fotokruml.cz/

Twister

I need to hear you say goodbye.

I don't know why I hang around.

You will soothe the pain within my eyes

and then you leave without a sound.

Show me a sign and I'm

taking you home.

Give me the time to show

how I have grown.

Under the old back porch you knew

I loved you more than there and so,

you will let me fall back on my own

and where you were I'll never know.

Show me a sign and I'm

taking you home.

Give me the time to show

how I have grown

There'll be sun, and

all eyes fall from heaven now.

See that I walk on.

That way.

So to the fall...

all stares, all breaks and no breaths.

Yeah, I walk on through the listen.

So you're sad, I turn away

to find out what I can be and so,

all these colors that shine within my soul,

and all I am, you'll never know.

Show me a sign and I'm

taking you home.

Give me the time to show

how I have grown.

Mmmm... it all works in

all harboured lands.

Something is real here, my

real bonney lass.

Something is real here and it's real there.

It's real here.

Something's habit and some...

some things happen.

Remy Zero