Tuesday, August 16, 2016

The Sea

The ocean at Walburga

The sea will change you like the broken glass of an indeterminate future. It has no presumptions; does not acknowledge class, income, gender or nation. Gifts are given freely as are tragedies. Relentless breathing on an equated universe, the sea will dissolve misunderstandings, give wonder another chance, prove the relativity of an entire life. Neither inevitable nor predictable. Words cannot pretend to describe its nature. Effects multiply as the earth turns. Fevers lessen–the heat dissipates. Where were you when the moments became so poignant? A vapor unable to share such a destiny, too transfixed on the common era. Your soft eyes forgave everything but were not compelled to the journey. Are the green densities you perceive from still above ground? I cannot begin to know. Strange days down by the railroad tracks, down by the lost boys deep within Manhattan subcultures. Such copy, I have not begun to use up all that copy. Events translated, the ocean roars and makes them known.

The light here will change you. Far from the indigestible city, the noise, the trash, the opportunities coming as fast as the D train. I have known lifetimes in this place. Who could those selves be? Trammeled and trampled, revived and rejuvenated, lost and found, all things at all times. A place so inscrutable you think you know it. You realize you are wrong, though the thirst for familiarity persists. A shady corner that holds all the books in the world; a sour destitution so potent you cannot look for long. Where have you gone, my sweet youth, our bodies ripe for the plunking; elementary ideas formed as cool flesh meets hot temper? More, you said. Yes. More it is. Anatomical surveillances begrudged you stable employment. The money ran out so you dove toward unmentionable solutions. We will never meet again, I fear. The sea has regarded all this and closed the seam. We walk in splendid memory, young forever, by the vast ocean. Waves take no notice, repartition at its most regenerative. Your ghost waits by the dockside, full of joy and mischief. Jewels of remembrance resurrect and reconstruct in a particular reverence when by the sea. Sunset shafts across time and place. Morning at water’s edge infiltrates the bloodstream. All is well here.

These pleasures are indeed momentary. Slick as an eel, ephemeral as fog. The dance comes and goes as it pleases. Who are we within all this preconceptions, I wonder? If you consider it, we are as changing as the open tide. Revolving pendulums. Up we go, there’s a good girl. To the mast, you say, overboard no good. Not in this lifetime or the next, if we have one. Who’s to know. Conjectures wastes time. Opportune philosophies give pause. You can fix your world with tables and chairs and flatscreen TVs. In the end the illusion fails us. The sea knows, though. It’s in and out, up and down, hot and cold, often lukewarm, tumultuous and divinely calm. The sea. The brilliant guru. 

Monday, August 8, 2016

Eternity

Residency at Walburga

Across from the endless, she sat. Spat upon all that could not pontificate without remorse. Each door slamming, each banal dashboard coming as fast as the speed of light, (death is such a quick thing), each dance with the wild tiger, gyrated a scurvy moment—after the molten—into a dream of consequence. Who were they that thought so much of themselves? Those who dragged spider web hairs from an unadorned face. Their lips leak broiling accusations. Who were they in their lack of commitment, engaging in the worst suppression? The smugness of vast cardinals at the wine table. Carriers of badges begrudging worthy redemptive powers. Burning without fire. Disregarding shimmering voluptuary. Quenching silken desires. Born dull, stayed dull. Beasts of no nation. Bold. Boring. Too many of them. She should have thought she would not see so many. There they were, though. An ocean of misplaced dedication. They were everything and everywhere. They were the foundry, the denial of lackluster selfhood. The charge of no night brigade, the valley of non sequiturs, the boastful derision generating ennui until the end of time. 

Shall we not avoid such comeuppance where all crossed wires sizzle? Shall not the night hold watery repetitionbeware the recurring theme of salty gestation. The sea will not hold transgressions or best moments. They will be best by all but yourself, blocked breathless, striding a reptilian trance. A tussle with the beneath, a dread day in the stand where minutia shall be relived whether you want it or not. The black shower of pale boys haunt you. Quick they were. Fierce, shiny rectangles, bought at a cost. The corner turned, the rail of infants, the destitution. Off it came, down you went, buoyant by the darkness of various prisons. These ruffians never took hold but honed your edge finely. Such sharpness can only mean one thingrenewal, everlasting and often. For if no renewal, every snake would die naked and exposed. While naked and exposed you were, your vulnerability turned humiliation into stone steps that could be traveledBuying against the future, you look back to see such silliness. Such wastefulness and avoidance. Down to the barrel without a cheese. There you took the crown, toddling off to mossy wetness where all is reworked into base magicians and semiprecious earls. Slithering silently to a room near the Roman storehouse scrolls, where you waited an eternity, knocking until you knew no one would answer. Bowl empty, tunnel dug. Freedom. 

What a summer it is, though. All tarnishments past. A clean well lit place, daylight illumination. First, giant metropolis steamy in its relentless educational crustations, on the river, in the bowels. Hard to digest; overwhelming and kind. Then, to the big house. Dawdling on the beach, respites from interior dialogs. Each notion a new page. Each dish a new resolution. What did they want anyway, you wonder? Smashing shells hold no sanctity for the original version. Still, they hold on, in fierce demand. Strange brew, so close yet so far. No matter. The road is open and she is on it again. The gypsy ghost knows no bounds, accepts no translations. Steadfast in resolve not to be anyone's imagined snipe, minx-like she continues to refine and polish the shiny edge of metal for her own delight.