Vampire Tiberius Constantine's blog: "invisibledon"

Welcome dearest friends to Castle Elsinore I find in the recent rising and falling of apollo's orb Hath deiscovered me to be not friend with Pan but rather my heart doth dwell with Hades

From back in the day So recently many people have suggested that I start blogging again, well with a bit more frequency than I have been. Well nothing much is going on in my life. Work, come home, sleep repeat. Do the dad thing every other week and that is about it for my life right now normal - well minus all the drama that happens in my life with the RIAA lawsuit, my mother hating me yadda yadda yadda So to find anything worth writing about I either have to bitch and complain like you need to hear my problems or get all political or write about stuff that has already happened. I picked C for today boys and girls, ladies and gents, people of all ages. Because I was reminded of a story of how the military some times messes up orders when I was talking with a person at work whose son is in the military and his orders got screwed up. So this one is from back in my days in the military, yes I was once a member of our nations armed forces you may remember a period of time some years ago when felt really safe and nothing bad could happen. Well that was when I was in the military and that is why you felt really safe. Not the point of the story or the story at all. While I was in there were a large assortment of people I was serving with and one of my friends Jay was call Budda pronounced Buddha. yes I know it isn’t spelled like Buddha but that is how it was said . Budda was thusly named because he 1) was a war comic book fan, 2) always wanted the machine gun 3) the word war comics put in for machine gun fire is Budda as in BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA and really big on the page So every one called Jay Budda, oh and by the way like normal Jay’s name isn’t really Jay but we did call him Budda I change real names to protect people in my stories Well Budda was a cool guy and was fun to be around and funny as all hell. The entire Flight (platoon for you non air force people) was really sad when Budda got sick. Really sick He had to go to the hospital on the base and didn’t get any better for a long time. Was then sent to a larger hospital in Germany and treated him there for a while. Well the other hospital was far enough away that most of us couldn’t visit Budda very often. Then we get the news that Budda had died. WTF? Yeah no kidding we have a ceremony and send his family our deepest sympathies. Well about 6 months later give or take. I was patrolling on the base and I see BUDDA walking on the base. I’m like WTF? I stop the car. Get out and Budda says, Hey Goose whatcha doing I was called Goose in the military and not invisible don as in the last story I wrote about cursing in Russian. So I say, You’re dead. Because at this point I’m wondering Ok 1. I’m dead and Budda is here to help me - ironic that I’m Buddhist and Budda is coming to meet me. 2. I’m going insane and having audio and visual hallucinations I don’t remember dying so I’m going with I’m insane for the moment. Budda says What? I say, You are dead Budda what are you doing here. Budda says, I was in a US hospital. I say what? Budda says, yeah they shipped me there from the hospital here because I wasn’t getting any better there either and this other hospital in the US had the idea that they could treat me and had access to other doctors that aren’t over here. Ok now I’m thinking I’m not dead and probably not insane. Because as the military is known it has some major SNAFU’s. The term comes from the military because they happen so often. SNAFU means if you don’t know Situation Normal All FUCKED Up This is a MAJOR SNAFU, Major still just means really big even in the military unless you are talking rank and it’s a middle rank but up there. Budda you have to come with me. He says What again. I said I’ll explain on the way so I take him to the Flight Chief and explain they told us you died and we sent sympathy cards to your mother. Then I’m like when was the last time you talked to your mother? Budda rubbed his chin, he did actually do that all the time and says I guess about a year ago. Oh man major FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Reason) Also has it’s roots in military mistakes So this has gone from Snafu to Major Snafu to the end all beat all Snafu Fubar of the century. I get Budda to the Flight Chief and have him wait outside because not everyone deals well with the dead coming back to life and all. So I walk in ask for permission to speak freely and then I say Sir I think we have a situation. Situation means really big problem in the military. The Flight Chief says Well what is it I say, do you remember Sgt. Budda? Yes he died. I say no he didn’t. What the fuck are you talking about? He is standing outside I just saw him on the base he is here, he was in the US. FC. You are fucking shitting me. In the military fuck is used in most nearly every sentence. I’ll edit for content sake No Sir he is here and Sir his mother isn’t aware that his isn’t dead. The FC is still not really quiet grasping the fact that Budda is alive. You know that look a dog does when they look at you sideways. All confused. Well the FC looks like this now. I told you most people don’t deal well with the dead coming back to life it doesn’t happen. Well that one time but other than that jesus guy not so much . So I figure the only way to snap the FC back out of the doggy stare is to bring Budda in to the room TA DAH as if by magic, fucking magic at that. This is the military and all. Well the flight chiefs next sentence consisted mainly of the f word in ways that I had never heard them before and more often than I had heard, ending with the phrase someone’s fuckin head will roll for this. Heads roll often in the military, more so when there is a SNAFU or a FUBAR involved. Well to make a longer story short. Budda was alive. His Mama found out he was alive and she was very happy. Budda got to go on leave because of the major snafu and see his mama and was actually offered an early discharge and compensation for pain and suffering. Heads did roll though. Some one who handles military orders some how never sent the hospital transfer papers through the chain of command. Then when our duty station had to do it’s accounting of troops it was reported that Budda was gone. That person took gone to mean DEAD not transferred. So they killed him on paperwork There was a congressional inquiry and all sorts of mean ugly nasty things going on and heads did roll. Budda and I got to have a beer or two or ten before he went back home. I wonder if he laughs about that, probably. Anyway that story made the mom here feel better about her son’s one week delay in coming home over a minor mistake in his orders.

As you may or may not know I know how to curse a bit in Russian, it is a really rather vulgar phrase so I won't repeat it here and being as my computer doesn't type Russian I can't even if I wanted too. You may be asking yourself why do I know such a vulgar phrase in Russian Well when I was living in Germany a group of us had the idea that it would be fun to go into East Germany and visit Berlin on both sides east and west. There were two Germany's once upon a time for you younger readers. So we arranged for a rental car, got the needed documentation and off we went on our adventure To get to Berlin then there was only one autobahn that people in West Germany could use to travel into Berlin – one of those eastern block things There were also a ton of rules for driving on that particular autobahn From both sides - Ours and theirs Their rules included not slowing down below a certain speed and if cameras were noticed in the car you could be stopped Our rules contradicted one of theirs – if the East Germans attempt to stop you continue at a normal rate of speed until you reach the checkpoint in Berlin Ok – why are we doing this trip – oh yeah for fun right So we get to Berlin and stay in the West for the first day Travel around see the sites and avoid looking like a tourist as much as possible We are out in a bar in West Berlin and having a few beers and a really good time The second day we head out early get breakfast in the west and then head to the check point to go across Well we get into the east pretty easily – with the instructions from our side if it looks like you are being followed you are being followed, if you don't think you are being followed you aren't paying attention So we get across and we are seeing the tourist things and staying on wide avenues and streets Avoiding large crowds and that sort of thing Well we are wandering around and not paying attention because we don't think we are being followed Well we notice this bar on a smaller street so we decide you know we have to drink a beer while we are here in the East you know just for general purposes So we go in, there are only two people in the place - the bartender and an older guy who isn't drinking but most likely works there we determined later So we go in go up to the bar Each of us in turn "Eine Bier Bitte" and the "Danke" So we go back and sit down and talk softly because we pulled off the not speaking English at the bar and were not questioned well except for me The spelling on this next bit is wrong I'm sure I was asked by the bartender"al es Klah" Me "Ja, und der?" Him "es gut danke" Me "gut, bitte" Then off to the table to drink our beers Well we aren't there 5 minutes and in walk 5 East Germans in army uniforms Oh phuck we are dead now One of the guys goes "oh sure invisible don you had to talk to the bartender didn't you I said he talked to me first – I guess I have one of those oh he'll talk to anyone faces So anyway we remain mostly calm and keep drinking our beers Then two minutes after the first group another group of soldiers enter the bar – now there are 12 East German Army members and 5 USAF off duty out of uniform cops We still have the advantage even unarmed (How very James Bond of us to think that) Well this trend of people slowly entering the bar continues and no one is really paying attention to us So I go and get another beer The place is busy but while I'm up at the bar I don't notice what my friends noticed which was 10 Russian Soldiers entering the bar YIKES and stuff now it's really not good for us 22 to 5 is better than four to one no matter what James Bond, MacGuyver crap we think we know if there is trouble we are going to get beat down like narcs at a biker rally Well I walk back from the bar doing my best not to draw attention to myself Well being that I bought most of my non-military clothes on the economy (ie they were European made) I didn't draw too much attention to myself but all the guys with me are in levis and t-shirts it was kind of a give away that "Hey you boys ain't from around here are ya?" Well we still stay because to run would just be bad at this point plus I had a full beer and abandoning a full beer because you are a little scared is a sin Well I notice too that many of the Russians are drinking vodka in little bottles - pint sized ones chilled and look really good So I'm being brave again and wanting a Russian thing I go back to the bar and order a vodka I get the bottle, the label is all in Russian and full of ice cold vodka So I get another one. One to drink and one to take back with me Well anyway I make it back to the table and the rest of the guys are about to have cows because I won't stay in my seat and hide I say "That looks more odd then moving around the bar acting normal" Well it wasn't long before one the Russians walked over and Said Hello in Russian – We just looked at him He then says Guten Tag I say Guten Tag And raise my beer glass he raised his and we drink I'm thinking he'll leave now He says "So you are American, Da or No" All the guys are like "ah uh der" I say "Yes, we are Americans" the instructions also said never lie if asked a direct question "you are military too, Da or No" "Yes" " you like Russian wadka, No?" "yes I like Russian vodka" "Good" He pulls up a chair and sits down with us My friends are all OMG we are so phucked now Myself and the Russian start talking He asks a lot of meaningless questions like about weather and the city and drinking Then he asks "how is my English?" I say you speak English well He wanted to know if he was cursing correctly too, so he went through a list of words the only one he got wrong was bullshit - he said cowshit So he taught me the one Russian phrase that is on the survey and some others that I've forgotten Any way we left after that and went back to the west and back to our base My friends are mad at me the whole way back for staying in the bar so long and what not I'm like we have a fun story to tell people now They didn't agree with me and give me hell the whole way back I used my new Russian on them and they didn't know what I was saying which pissed them off even more Anyway that is how I learned that phrase, if you are dying to know what it is I may tell you or I might not call me at 330 in the morning you might hear it by accident. Well some of you might not and you know who you are. Ciao

Some how and in some way humans have convinced themselves that love it is the beat all, end all, of mortal happiness. This may indeed be true but We define our lives by how we are loved. Life without love is said to be meaningless and devoid of joy. However poets and minstrels have stolen the idea of love from its true place in this world and perverted it so intensely that the truth of love is lost. Poets with flowery words and song singers with drippingly sweet melodies have mislead the world for centuries. Poet and singers the masters of love, nay they are deceivers, the spawn of hell, hounds feeding on carrion decayed with maggots sent to destroy love and all that would fall for their false banners. Love should be recaptured from these hoards of robber pirates and announced to the world anew. Tear down the walls and paper façade and reveal the true nature of love. Love is the blossom in spring that shines and shows a promise of new life. No, love is not the spring. The blossom in spring lasts but a brief moment that is but an instant and then withers and dies on the vine. Love is the warmth of a summer day basking and carefree, gleeful with the promise of youth. No, love is not the summer either, for youth is fleeting a drumbeat in our life not nearly long enough here before its sound and warmth are gone. Love is the harvest and the light golden rust hues of autumn with the promise of fulfillment and prosperity. No, love lives not in autumn. It can not be found here either, for the light in autumn fades to quickly and death grips the earth. To often the bouquets by the armfuls have fallen by the wayside. Vases filled with brackish water after a day or two. To often the drums of frolic have been muffled too quickly and the silence grown deafening. To often have the bountiful feasts gone uneaten and rotted. Caravans of treasures tossed carelessly to the heap with broken dreams and promises. Loves false prophets wave their banners atop these mounds grown higher and higher. The discarded heaps straggle with a putrid stench build up in over a millennium filled with lies and untruths. Still lovers march under the banners of the poets and singers not heeding nor seeing broken treasures and crushed blooms. The sing song tales of love distract the eyes from the corpses and decay of all those lured by the lies of these minstrels of doom. My own journey has led me along the same paths. I’ve flown the same banners of love. My eyes have been open finally and I see that the memories I have of love are all masks hiding the truth and the ugly, greedy faces of spring, summer and autumn. My ears deafened by the lies, which have hidden the selfish, needful and self-serving ways of each of the false paths. Weary and exhausted my journey has left me standing striped of my armor, battered and bruised, bleeding, nearing death and I’ve finally found the truth. Love is cold and chill like winter. A barren and empty wasteland filled only with the sounds of footsteps across the frozen landscape. Easily lost within the sameness of the white that surrounds and blankets the ground, trees and air. Winter makes no promise of blossoms that wither and die upon the vine and are forgotten. Winter makes no promise of warmth or youth that leaves all to quickly. Winter does not promise to feed us through to the next harvest nor deceive with golden lights, flowery blooms or the brightness of the sun all set to masking the truth that all life and all thing in it are fleeting. For the true nature of love is cold and chill like winter. Love is icy and frozen, so cold that to grip it too firmly burns more so than any fire. Love is an empty tundra, windswept and clear, devoid of anything. There is no promise in love only crystalline whiteness and pure emptiness. Winter hold me in your chilly grasp and lay your icy breast against me so I may feel the burning cold. Kiss me with your frozen lips so I may breathe you in and feel the knives of ice tear at my chest and smell your perfume in the crisp frosty air. Then as I exhale see the misty fog slip past my lips and from my body like my soul escaping, knowing that you were there within me. Let my hands fall in the long white cascades of your hair that flow around you like the swirling storms of snow falling silently. Winter hold me in your pale arms and whisper close to me so that I may stare into the icy blue pools that are your eyes and see reflected back the nothing but white stillness that envelopes everything. And may I see that love is winter, cold and empty and only promises to bring nothing. Winter steal my heart from the thieves that have poisoned my sight and let the ice and cold within your arms encircle me and then walk with me across the plains hearing only our footsteps on the frozen earth. Then embrace the truth, the truth that love is winter cold and icy but fair and is a promise of only but what you bring to it and nothing more. © 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007

In a few of the last entries I've noticed I've made references to my Buddhist studies and how I'm feeling a good connection with the ideals of Buddhism. My intent with that is not to become some Buddhist freak and it will be all I talk about any more. However, reading the Dalai Lama two themes he comes back to time and again in his teachings are compassion and interconnectedness. I've been meditating on these and while much of it I already understood the connectedness of man to one another but I think my understanding of if has increased recently. We don't always think of the interconnectedness of ourselves to others and the more we think of our self above others we usually end up causing our self more pain and grief and suffering. Every action of every other person affects our life. We may not see it directly in our daily lives and maybe not for years. This morning I was meditating on coffee and how my enjoyment of it presents an extreme form of interconnected which I experience everyday. From the ditch digger who put in the water mains which bring water into my house, the electrician, the house builder, the potter who made my mug, the person who dug the clay, planted the seed which grew and produced the coffee beans. The host of people I've never met whose actions some many years ago have all come together for a moment of taking a sip of coffee in my house early in the morning before the sun comes up. What effect will my actions have on those around me and those I'll never meet even years from now. This is where the spirituality of it comes into play do you want the impact to be positive or negative. How can you know the whole possibility of the impact? We are deeply connected to every person. Then I mediated on the recent execution of Saddam Hussein. While many people wanted this man to die, there are many people who did not. I'm not saying his actions were excusable he brought pain to many thousands of people and in a sense he touched the lives of every person on the planet and even those who are not even born yet. Now though the judges and jury in Iraq to extract justice for the past actions of one man have put in to play an action which will impact every person further into the future than the actions of the person they punished. Our leaders I think do not think enough about the impact of their actions and the interconnectedness of those actions and the impact it will have for generations to come. Perhaps the oath of public office should include a line from the Hippocratic Oath, First do no harm.

Avanti Part I by Invisible Don She pretends to love me My heart is hers. Her smile brightens and her eyes widen Her thoughts aren’t there. She is slight Her ribs show through her skin Her hair is raven shimmering On her pale shoulders. Our conversations are wildly frightening Both of us pushing the edge Trying to find some clue of who Is hiding behind the face We gaze at each other Never seeing We listen to the words But not hearing She lies against me I want her nearer She touches me And I shiver Her black leather boots rise up to her thighs Then she wraps them around my hips And her arms around my neck I hold her She whisper nothing to me Her breath is warm The steel ring in her lip brushes my face I stare into her eyes She kisses me My heart breaks And she pretends to love me copyright invisibledon

Lately I’ve been losing my faith in the humanity of man and by man I mean that male and female of the species. Disclaimer - Now these are just my personal thoughts and are not directed toward anyone person or about any person specifically. My work is contributing a lot to my spiraling loss of faith in people and man’s humanity to man. Not that I’m the prime example of how to treat other people because for what ever reason I do seem to generate a fair amount of hate despite what I feel are my best efforts to do no harm to my fellow human beings. Part of that being what I like to call the “Peter Rabbit Principle” I don’t think it’s anything in a book about how to treat people but in the children’s story the mother rabbit says, If you don’t have anything nice to say it’s best to just not say anything. Or something along those lines I’m not quoting Ms. Potter because I don’t happen to have a copy of Peter Rabbit lying around anywhere close by at the time but will give her due credit for saying something very similar to what I have just conveyed to you. Now I’m just being overly verbose for really no reason at all other than I’m trying to think of how to move on from here in my stream of writing style. So I assume that much of the feeling I generate from people may indeed be unintended because I just don’t say things when perhaps I should just tell people to fuck off but I don’t. Either way I think the result is the same. So if I speak my piece I generate hate and if I don’t I generate hate. So I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. So much of everyone’s life it seems is choosing to pick between the lesser of two evils and not about trying to find what is the best thing to do or the greater good. Moreover it seems that people are trying to seem how much they can take from their fellow man without having to give up anything of their own. I do cling to a few of my things but I think if it came right down to it I could live without all the things I have and probably be much happier. I see this everyday hate of people around other people and I just don’t understand why everyone has to be that way. Why does it have to be a male issue or a female issue or a white issue or a black issue or any other label we attach to the reasons we fling hate to others. We all breathe the same air and require the same basic nutrients to survive despite little differences we are all the same. The difference we attach to ourselves or others attach to us. In either case the labels generate hate and distrust of those not labeled the same. If you label your self Christian then those who aren’t are deemed to be less worthy. Why? If you are labeled by others as one thing or another how do you fight that label? Back lashing against it which only strengthens the hate each group feels toward the other and further perpetuating hate. However I don’t think man’s inhumanity toward their fellow man is going to subside any time soon. Not without some apocalyptic event which will threaten the existence of every single human, even then I doubt we would be able to set aside our differences and work together as one single group of people. We as a whole are circling the proverbial drain.

Prying against the tourniquet bite Crimson splashes speckle the floor Slowly weeping out along the gashes Once rose colored and warm lips Frost over a frozen blue Now cold against the rising sunlight Light fades as the sun rises Thickening pools upon the ground Gleam brightly at my feet Deafening silence now rings in my ears Whispers now of some far off screaming invisible don 6/19/06

Only a few from the whole. By invisible don copyright 2005 Wandering in from haunts long ago Comes a muse The ticking clock echoes in the world No one hears it save for me Counting out the grains of sand Only the crones know Their shears like the scythe of mortality Forever cleaving lives apart. Threads not meant to be twined Parts of the tapestries of two Never meant to touch Look closely at a portrait The brush strokes waiver this way and that. Flecks of red here and there Splatters of blue and green What colors are captivating? What colors are fleeting Stand close to a tapestry Gaze upon the threads. Which ones make the whole? Which thread in the tapestry if pulled? Will unfurl it leaving it wasted on the floor Do you dare pull on this white one? The brown one here that is frayed? Would you know which one to toss aside? Take a step back Gaze up on the whole Where is that fleck of green? Where is that spot of brown Seemingly insignificant each color No matter how small Complete the whole Step closer now Look deeply in to her eyes Can you see it there? Beside the flecks of yellow in the brown And not quite near the halo of blue There right there In her gaze Her dream There all the while for you to see It’s right there in her lips Very near the corner Where her smile begins But doesn’t really finish It’s there in the way she looks away In the fall of her hair In the drape of the sweater Its in the way she swirls her coffee Stares off into the shadows to see the last sliver of light It’s there in her sigh Can’t you hear her dying? All the things you love in her Fading away Slowly slipping from her fingers Fates let her rage Rage against the slumber of mediocrity And hear my cry to heaven Let her fire live And chain me with Prometheus 11/05 copyright 2005

Dark in the corners of my mind Hidden by boxes and other debris Locked behind the door I keep my secrets. Calling from the darkness. Secrets that fate has given to me. Stumbling under the weight and the doubt that crushes me Weakly I fight the demons who if unleashed would kill me Slowly they would enjoy their task They revel in my pain My agony feeds them Cruelly fate brings more demons to my door. Sinister is the smile gracing the lips of fate I know the razor lies behind the crimson I kiss her still The cuts sear deeper The blood runs thickly down my throat The kiss is my payment and my curse. Still I long to feel the icy lips on mine To smell the wisps of perfume dancing around her And I know a new sin to hold By invisible don 1/31/07