GOT THEM LOW-DOWN DRIED-OUT DESERT BLUES

                   Nothing ,  nothing growing save a few scrubby and thorny bushes dotting the wasted landscape for as far as the eye , mine anyway , can see . There was a tree , a sharp , skeletal sign post , my memory of it the only thing that acknowledged my passage through this silent dimension .

                   Even the air here saw no reason to move at all during the heat of the day and it had a tinge of saltiness on the tongue as it sat in this ...Strokeland . The previous night , my first in this Sargasso dead sea had taught me that it was not until sundown that the local life became visible . Well , not exactly visible but they could be heard scuttling and skittering among the rocks . Distance here is hard to guage , I can see plainly enough I guess but the atmosphere here distorts what lies just beyond . I put my head down for a short time in the cooler night air when I caught a large sweeping movement in the haze ,It was difficult to discern but what I saw was skeletal and immense , stretching higher than I could really see , it was insect like , my mind calls it mantis but that is impossible , I hope .

                    It is confusion and fear that rule in this hell . I had gone to sleep innocently enough back the world , back in the life I'd lived for my entire existence and when I awoke , one side sore and tired and the other numb and sluggish . I ' d gone to the hospital , walked into the E.R. and those were my last steps that I remember in that realm . I woke up on this arrow - straight , arid road to ...somewhere I hope .

                 As confusing as it all is , the deeply embedded certainty that I have a reason to be here on this road , that my purpose is to reach it's end no matter what . I have no memory of how or when this became as important as it is but I know that I must , I know that to get here I passed through a place that I must never venture into again alive .

                   However it was that I arrived here , I wish that I had been deposited in better condition , My side , the left one is so damned heavy , I'm dragging it along with me and the drive that pushes me along means that stopping and resting is not an option , pain and the promise that it will continue are all that exists on the programme . I do not know what waits at the end of this road but even that big mantis had better take a walk when I get there because after this road , this pain , this one - sided weight lifting , mood wise I'll be one irritated , agitated , infuriated , motivated mother $%^*&^%*.

                                                                   "  ALL ABOARD  "