in the evening these candles burn down low, there are shadows dancing on the walls and ghosts communicating through enochian calls, you say they are angels, i say no, you say they are angelic and I say... maybe. 

in that darkness that comes before, in the envelope that consumes one and all, they reach out to reach in, you say they are communicating vessels and i say no, you say they are elementals and i say no, you say they are supernatural and I say...maybe.

at certain times in my life these late years i think about the dead, the people i loved and who are gone now, and i miss my dad, our talks about god. i miss my friend tim and our adventures. it seems like that was all so long ago, a different time, a past life. i get it all mixed up sometimes, i'm not sure if i have had so many past lives in one or my dad and tim are in some passed life, sometimes i hear their voices and i hold conversations just like they were right there with me, tim telling me his stories of old sydney, wild fishing trips, romps with brazilian strippers and his love of animals, even though he was never shy about eating them. tim had money and knew how to use it, he had a generous spirit, he was larger than life, and that's why i still feel him, that strange big hulk-ish energy, a touch of tony soprano, a touch of jackson pollock. tim had lust, he sucked marrow from every situation he could, whereas i took a bite here and there, i'd drive him home when he got to drunk and he would tell me in his unburdened freedom how he loved me for being his friend.

and he laughs at me now. laughs at my strange life and how things turned out.

and the other ghost is my dad, but he doesn't really talk to me, he just listens. i talk to him. how does that work? 

there are other people i have lost along the way, violent suicides and bad luck but those take a back seat when it comes to apparitions, most of the time it's just a faint trace of dad and tim.

one night i will be driving along and the sound on my radio goes weird, all static pouring through, in between stations. i'll hear them in the noise, and tune in to the signal, but as soon as i do it fades. and voices on the radio, the guitars return, the drum machines, echo chambers and crunching hombres. 

sometimes it feels like they are right there, dad pouring his whiskey, saying his prayer that went on for ever, asking god to protect us, a long list of friends and family, he really cared for people in his way. sometimes i hear it just above the surface but again, once i tune in my attempt drive it away. it's forbidden perhaps, but i cannot help myself, the desire to connect is strong, after all he was my father.

and then there's tim in my kitchen making a mess. taking cds out from their cases, he's looking for 'the lightning seeds', he loved them. sometimes if i listen hard in ambient hours, i can hear a voice, 'it all makes sense.'

 

he was amazed at how i knew whom ian brodie was, actually even i was amazed. i don't really know how that piece of trivia was stuck in my brain. it was a mystery, our whole friendship was. it was an adventure. it was very funny, we laughed, but it was quite strange now i think about it, a spiritual quest that was like a road trip, one character, the countries highest paid qc, who drove a beaten up old bmw filled with cassettes, cases, tapes unspooled all over the car floor and manilla files filled with the particulars of a case he was working on. he was an alcoholic, a man who loved expensive wine and had very exotic tastes and there was me, a psychedelic warrior in search of space but finding only time. we saw things no one should see, we did it all, the good the bad and the ugly. mostly it was god, sex and death. 

and now i just see the strange fleeting shadows, the glimpses from the corner of my eye, the whispers and erratic presence of something inexplicable. and then there's that loss, the deep trench i have to navigate each day, that missing part of life, the void i can't fill, friendship. for it is a ship and we steered that old gunboat / trawler into 'off the map' territory and i was lucky to return a richer man.