risa's pieces.

A cause is an individual dream writ large—
in blood and in big block letters.

If blood makes you squeamish, you have the other human secretions Churchill kept blathering about at your disposal.

(you don’t have to tell me that “toil” isn’t a secretion. Toil is synonymous to work, which in physics is equal to force times distance. If you ask me, though, work is… work. It’s not a cause.)

I don’t have a cause, but I do have dreams.
A year ago, dreams were welcome strangers capable of exquisite torture:

violent sleep
[24I05]

dreams can fuck with you
with 30-second spots
of love and sex with your never-can-be's
in full color and sense-surround sound

censors are dead in your sleep
and you are both audience and actor
in this sequence so real
that reality is rendered pale

praying to god for a rerun,
a reprise,
a sequel
seems blasphemous
and you close your eyes again
fearing the dreamless sleep of the bored

Three years ago, I was already resigned to the ephemeral nature of dreams:

beside you is accepting what dreams are—
fragile things that shift and vanish
at the slightest movement—
and dreaming all the same
though we are never still, even in sleep

(excerpt from an untitled piece written [22XI03])

And seven years ago, I discovered that dreams require good lighting and inspire bad writing:

Dreams Look Better When You're Drunk
[10/20/99]

dreams look better at night, under the gentle light of the moon and the stars (or the yellow light in the green swing in the garden).
dreams look better when you've had a drink or two, and you're loose and happy and free.
dreams look better when you're drunk on life and laughter
and you're with fellow dreamers who believe.
dreams look better when all you have to do is talk about them,
and the people you're with listen, (dreams look better when you share them with your sibs under the yellow light in the green swing in the garden, with a beer and a smoke [he puffs away while i inhale second hand smoke])

but when night turns into day, and the harsh sunlight beats down on you,
the dream doesn't look like so grand anymore... a mirage?
is that what it was?
a hangover, all you're left with is a headache and a fleeting memory of something beautiful...
something about the moon and the stars in the sky.
you stay in your bed and try to recapture the moment when you thought you had the answers, when life was going to be ok.
you shake your head and think "dreams look better at night, because at night, you can't see the flaws."

Point: these aren’t dreams that explode into causes. My dreams implode soundlessly. I need a cause so I can quit dreaming and start making some noise.

(I was supposed to write something totally new. I've already started, but it’ll have to wait. I blame Risa and the indigenous people for this entry.)