Left Hand Charity.

"I have no convictions - as they are understood by the men of my century - because I have no ambition. However, I have some convictions - in a nobler sense - which cannot be understood by the men of my time."

~Charles Baudelaire.

Welcome to yet another revolution. Turning circles like a dog chasing his tail. Round and round we go, but where we stop, nobody knows. Can you believe our long blink continues? Oh, goodness gracious, the world must be begging for an end: for the eye to re-open and for us to be gone. But, alas, we fight on. We feel the pull of the world, we spin with it, we watch another year disappear in our rear-vision mirror as the highway of our lives crests another hill, and rolls down the other side. Glory be, we live to witness more small miracles, more large disasters, and more personal turmoil. Greetings, 2009. Shall we be friends, or shall we be foes?

Well, hello again you star-crossed lovers. How be you on this, the first day of the new year? Do you have that beautiful, bright little spark in your eye? I hope you do, from the bottom of my harassed and trodden heart. I'm wondering (back here again) where my next steps should lead me, or whether I need even care about such heart-churning things. I have become such a serious man these last years. I have lost so much humour.

Had a nice time at the beach up north, although I would have chosen only a couple of those there with me if I'd been writing the guest list. Humans are such an onerous, uninspiring lot to socialise with. But I had the chance to lie alone in a tent, my head sticking out the door, and marvel at the stars for the first time in what must be several years. How many words have been written about staring up at those tiny dots in the night sky? How many have captured the feelings it creates, or the wonder it inspires, or the way it serves to remind us of our complete insignificance in the grand scale of this entire, bewildering universe? How many of those words have told the true story?

But enough, enough of this. Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye. Let us now move on to bigger and better things. Such as how I am ever going to get past all of these daggers in my heart, bullets in my head. Give me something to get me through it, for the dark thoughts are gathering again, like a heavy cloud of rain, on the periphery of my mind. When it reaches the mountains in the middle, the clouds will break and the downpour will cause a flood so harsh, I doubt I'll be able to swim against the rising waters. Peaceful, peaceful. I will not go quietly.

How many years are you hoping to amass before you finally drop dead?