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22.10.09

FIRST GUEST BLOG ON HEART OF BALANCE 'On the Road' by Lou Mansfield


"on the road.. .

There are no desks. or bookcases. or boxes of photographs, keepsakes, angel pins, postcards. mistakes. They’re all in an attic waiting somewhere safe. Being on the road, in the less than Kerouac sense of Bukowski’s middle name, is a hard place to beat. Because you tell yourself that you need a desk. a heavy desk.. . some kind of antique coffee-haloed, dark, foreboding, menacingly difficult to drag alongside with you, kind of desk. Piled high, like Dr Caligari’s desk, along with an endless stream of consciousness, caffeine.. . alchemy. are all of the books you’ve ever fallen in love with. all of the books you never dared or even dreamed to fall in love with. all of the books that seduced you. all of the books that made your world fall apart, undone. all of the books you’ve ever wished you’d written. all of the books that stole your ideas, thoughts, feelings, without you ever really knowing. all of the books that you’ve ever read. all piled high across a desk. a heavy desk. all or nothing in the desk sense of being, you are. all that you can think about. all that you think you know. all that your thoughts hinge, pin and hang from. is this. like a labyrinth, taps against the train window pane you’re staring out of. touching the fold down tray, with your absent hand, like this could ever be, some kind of desk that you dream about, want. to hold. in your hands. like a lover. and never let go.. .

All of your thoughts are shoe less, lined up, waiting to be invited into this, desk. this world of salacious ink stains, words. All of your thoughts are blindfolded, hands tied behind their backs. quiet. patient. waiting. for what? a desk. And without gravity we have no real ideas. about being. they go like the clappers, out of our minds, like kites, I imagine. I fear. would happen, instead. of a life, on the road. without gravity, without a hand to hold, without a bookcase, or an angel pin. without old collections of photographs. without a bed to fall out of. that you can call home. without meaning. without sense. without reason. without a decent hat stand. without a desk. How can a writer, write. so far away. so far removed. from everything. all or nothing, in the fictional sense of being all midnight around the eyes, without a light in the dark. How suffocating it can be, to be on the road. sometimes.." .

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