Chapter 1 

Time of great expansions! Rough are the contradictions in the hot blood of the streets of Berkeley! The rapids flow into quiet paradise for a moment, there, with a few books under the tree where the dogs run on the grass.

The annihilate matter of speech when the sun is hot. And all things spin in the air with no place to go. And there one spots his imagination unleashed like happy puppies high above the building.

The word is sword tonight. And heads will roll.

The head is an orange filled with balls of light and pushes outward to its rendezvous; that curious corner of destiny where young men roost ready to fight off those who tell them otherwise.

Birds of the withering wings swoop down to take heads far away. Away and out from the eternal gabbling that novelists use for their stories. "Oh, these people are no different and said the same things a thousand years ago so why bother?" A laugh. A twinge.

The rapid fire dreams are a senseless harpy on his desire to escape. "Why harpies do you turn on me in this fragile state?"

It often felt that way on summer nights walking in and among happy crowds coming in from the clubs or hole-in-the-wall theater where they put on Ionesco and Andreyev. Littered clouds glowed with a hidden moon and it felt prelude to a good rain even if the rains were months off. There was no piece of mind as I heard the BART train in the distance at Rockridge or a siren going down Ashby. Out at night, free and fully oneself, having written in the park with back against the tree, all was good. I could not see the fierce future and the past seemed like a happy mistake. Those nights, some nights when the dogs are all asleep and the criminals have not yet appeared. Those nights, those times.

David Eide
January 24, 2014