There's no peace in my spirit, the past plagues me, so many others (Sunday weekenders today) and it's always the same, runners and strollers, and cart pushers, and sleepers, they are all around, everyday 'they' are here, loneliness surrounded by friends, contradictions everywhere, beauty and historical witness of trees, bluffs and other things, local dwellers cursing the temporary yet giving thanks for the gold and bums they bring, the humanity of peasants amist the sacrilegious wealth of aristocrats, for twenty-five year such has it been and still no end, the conflict presents itself in the trees, the tracking raven disturbing the lesser birds of peace and my own, cawing out its curse above, bringing answers of warning and fear, yes it's true, nature's parallel existence with the cancer of man, there is more beauty around than nature has to offer, the sight of young, poor, homeless couples, helping each other to survive, even the drunken, drugged dwellers help each other to survive, even the pitiful act of dragging a semi-conscious friend from the streets to an alley courtyard rates more merit than the pitiful donation of a dollar when asked for spare change, when will the cooing of the dove over power the curse of the raven?

     The Caribbean has more peace of mind to offer, there's isolation and seclusion on the islands, the absence of grossly oversized city is overwhelming, to be alone there is to be at peace with the universe, a lone traveler there has friends among surf, beach, rocks and coves, there is a place where is is not difficult to imagine how it was before man screwed up his  relation with God, there only the hatred of the native islanders against the white man's exists, there the island bums and homeless seemed more a natural part of the surroundings, protected by the romance of nomadic life among the islands.

     Many times I've stood on the rocking top of Whiteside, looked toward the setting sun and imagined being here, back there being a place where only big cities can be imagined, being here, it is more pleasant to imagine being there. There's no power here to compare with Whitewater falls, maybe on top of Santa Monica mountains, if only to get above this illusion of city life, away from traffic noise, gibberish of too many languages, the waters begin to flow from such mountain places and this is the end of some, economic wealth and power among human squalor.

     It's all the noise, the car horns, the traffic cursing, the alarms and sirens, it's all the noise, it's the distance too, there's not really that many places to see, there are so far apart an no easy way to get there, fifty miles through the countryside is nice, through the city is not nice at all, mile after mile of city traffic, lost in the maze of LA, my mind is, bits and pieces of interesting action scattered about in space and time, local continuum events with which I can no longer connect, you know me thinks they are real events, congealed from imagination, images created in illusory buildings, now my mind is lost again in a make-believe maze of thoughts.