Showing posts with label prose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prose. Show all posts

A Reconstructed Memory

 My home country, several years ago (or more), pre-COVID era (feels like a lifetime or two ago, I don’t dare trust my memory anymore). A local 4-piece band is performing at a hipster-like venue at a small-scale alternative rock festival in the capital city. Their sound is a mixture of surf rock, rockabilly and the 1960s psychedelia, with contrasting distorted guitars. They play their own tracks only. The musicians are graced by bright white lights growing dimmer as you move further away from the stage, where they darken, dissolve and evaporate, mixed with clouds of smoke.
The crowd is demographically mixed, small, but enthusiastic; the people (drunk and sober alike), are dancing and swaying to the music they by all means have never heard before. Alcohol and other stimulants are helping everyone leave their real-life tension behind, but I chose the hard way out: being sober (as I always am). The friend I came with (a very fine guitarist himself) took a few shots of our fabled local alcohol prior to the gig, guaranteed to keep him cheerful, although he’s perfectly capable of maintaining his happiness on his own.

The band is going through the set as planned, then all of a sudden, right after the intro to the 5th or 6th track for the night  -  the power on the stage is out. All electric instruments, guitar pedals, microphones etc. fall silent. The music stops. The crowd, undeterred, starts cheering, empathizing with the musicians’ predicament, as the bass player is walking off stage in an attempt to solve the issue.Devoid of (functional) microphones, the lead singer and the guitarist do their best to apologize to the crowd and even crack a joke while waiting on the bass player or anyone else to get back to them with (good) news. The drummer sits in silence. My friend, myself and everyone around us starts chatting to fill the gap brought on by the sudden lack of music.
Without any intro, the guitarist starts playing a bare, slo-mo version of Del Shannon’s “Runaway“ on his electric guitar, now turned acoustic, and the lead singer starts singing along, his mellow voice reverberating through the venue, with no microphone. The drummer is still silent. After a few bars, my friend and the people around us start joining in. I sing along too, instinctively, surprised; how come I know some of the lyrics, despite having paid next to no attention to this song, until now?
My chest trembles softly. My head is buzzing. A tear or two hangs in the corner of my eye. Time stops. The whole universe condenses into that tiny venue, a pack of people in it, and the unrehearsed, on-the-spot, minimalist, ethereal version of “Runaway“. A missing piece of my heart falls into place.

In my loneliest, darkest hours, when time stops, I pull this memory out from the depths of my brain, wrapping it around myself, like a soft blanket. The way I listen to “Runaway“ completely changed after that.



Séamus (as it happened in a dream, 2012)

They intercepted me in a forest outside Corkey, Co. Antrim, one afternoon, with torches, one by one, although I was doing nothing other than minding my own business. She was the first to emerge, Fiona. A white dress, male-short black hair, a fist of redness on her cheeks, acute anger. She said she was looking for James and she asked me where he was, as it obviously was expected of me to know that. Then the others appeared as well. Delicate pasts, three sisters, two brothers. Michael was the eldest, a twenty-year-old. Freshly out of prison. Then Moyra, Daniel and Brigid, there it was again, the same incurable cobweb of darkness. When they turned their backs on me for a minute, on a leaf-covered slope, there weren’t a lot of trees in that spot and the sun suddenly shone more brightly, unveiling an ash-haired boy, with a slightly dirty face and a torn black jacket, and the eyes as ancient and as hard as Knocklayde. He just looked at me, then disappeared. I knew I should keep my mouth shut. In the town outside, a wooden box to be put in the ground was already underway. The people around were buzzing like tangled bees. They were angry with me. As if I’m the one who had lost James. They didn’t understand that it wasn’t him anymore for whom a cow should be taken to the shore to have her blood drawn. I started crying, but not out of sorrow.
(English translation, July 2020)


                                                                                   An Encounter, July 2020

Lights on / Lights off

This is an interesting habit/feature of many Earthlings I've encountered so far:

during what they call ''day'', outside (under natural luminance), or in closed spaces (under artificial luminance), their faces appear featureless and empty, their skin flat and plain and their behaviour conditioned by many patterns in which they happily ravel, thinking it makes their lives easier.

But at what they call ''night'', in spaces where all luminance (both natural and artificial) is gone, Earthlings start manifesting an interesting feature - the inner luminance. In the first phase it comes out of the eyes and builds up in concentric circles, and it's usually the only phase for most of them.
But when the second phase occurs (in those that have too much luminance in them so the body is unable to bear it and has to find another vent through which it will let the excess light out) - it happens through their skin. The skin starts cracking under the burden of light, so the light starts dripping, oozing and emanating through the cracks.

The light they release at night seems to be altering their behaviour completely - they cease to rely on the patterns, they are liberated from every shackles. They are more true to themselves and to others, and all the fear of digging deeply into themselves and uniting with the hidden material buried in there - is simply gone.
When the new day begins, they return to their featureless selves, and at night they start emanating light again, and so the whole cycle starts anew.





where do I go now, O Academics? where do I go now, O Battle-droids? where do I go now, O Door-knobs? where do I go now, O Petrol-based eyes? where do I go now, O Bodily fluids? where do I go now, O Mother?
                     seven years, saving hunger for the hungry, sharpening knives for midwives, pretended I read through the pages wide spread but only I knew where the hands were and why, disgusted and disgustipated sleepless constipated by the dreadful truth about the salivally marked territories and soldiers with glass in the eyes and eyes in the glass and rotten mouth skin eloquent but no taste at all, unable to fill in to fill in the void.
                       a master of concrete an expert constructor I constructed a truth, names a word a pumping muscle to give away and I gave away what I had and what I didn’t have I gave as well.
                       In return I got acronyms micronyms micropiss macroenvy macroshit and the broken fan
           no window is a window no paper is paper no mind is a mind without a name in it when you pretend to be reading but dreaming about the bell and the hallway and the doorway and the silk that reflects on the head instead,
                           two winters in a row it was cold in the celebration hall birds of feather shit together sweat and giggle worst fucking music ever except for the music when I looked at the hands two hands the hands that waved I thought I loved Clapton just so I could look at those hands, Slowhand is an orphan-apparition the eyes of a fish art-school  coloured glass the technique was irrelevant the package the surface the media was not the message I know it now all I had to do was deliver the insides declare the goods the good the light through the flesh that still was in me
                       unconstructed, thus unaware it was there, unaware we would grow up and down, my frown, my truth, my youth, my ghost, my rudder, my brother, my pi, my voice, my engine, my late for the wheels to home, my I I’d lay my head right here on this concrete bed so we could talk talk and talk talk  my I don’t want to go home I want to grow wings I can fly above things on the soil now because someone’s uncle sat in the car next to the man who plays mean guitar and voices his vowels and his words like a father
                         the master had failed to construct what he laid his hands upon but what he didn’t lay his hands upon became a garden that no one looked upon because they thought it wasn’t there so he didn’t care if it was growing or not too busy watering the fake paper grass hoping to grow a rose from the glass
                 the master was unaware of the closing time of Eden bars so he stayed until late in front of the door a burning sore but to no avail it was late even the hookers were gone and the good children were in bed dreaming about how they slept and dreamt overseas clean white sheets and could I be a man of science and is there a dark side of the moon and is it true that I’ll take off the glasses and be making friends with bottle
                            and the Holy State was calling the brave have answered unaware they will be missed by the not so brave the generous bossom overseas embracing the youth and offering a place in gospel choirs for both the holy and the unholy black is beautiful and white is beautiful tune in with angels come and tell us what it is you want and we’ll tell you what it is you don’t need because the purpose of the fish is to give and be given
                             seven years asleep amongst the sleeping I refused to have my meat taken out I refused to sell my teeth, the glory that no one promised never came and we grew out of the seed into the bloom this somewhat deliberate misscalculation is the sequence of the growth regardless of the technicolour or the monochrome but too late to call now too old to wait so I sit devouring horizons and in the horizons a winged cephalloid me the void opening up the crack to Ginsberg and Kerouac to mala beads alpha-streams to tea-leaves to he-leaves dreams himself a mortar collar, and in the dream he never looks back and in the dream he leaks through the crack and in the dream all laden with bees and in the dream he lands and in the dream into the hands and in the dream he’s eaten away and in the dream through the mouth and in the dream into the veins and in the dream I’m bleeding honey I’m bleeding Coltrane I’m bleeding Kerouac and in the dream behind the wheel four hands but there are two hands and in the dream heaven is in Frisco and in the dream wearing Jedi colours and in the dream taking them off and in the dream looking down on my body seeing the rope and in the dream a body next to a body said don’t go I need you so
                       I’d polish it clean I won’t keep track I’d give it away and I won’t ask it back it’s too red black and too loud I can’t sleep at night
every day
anyway
define nothing
be fine
this inch this syllable this animal this tongue this soul, inhalation is for the fishes
            this pound unchangeable unweightable a solar canine a cane for the blind to those who follow you blindly a cape of a dead navigator dead on the soil but alive elsewhere I wish you could see
                               this blooming hoops of electricity this colours this ear pressure this tube in the hole in the skull of the chosen of the walkers of the soil of the earth of the endlessness of the unfolded universe the love oh the love there’s so much of it I’d surrender my pineal gland for a drop for the air for the rope for this liquidity I reach out with my hands to touch this branches to sink with these roots
this animus this anima
this aenema

an unknown soldier’s riding by with ease
please search no more my burning sore
I am your long-lost John Riley
but if this is the window
and if this is the curtain
is it me
looking in
or is it me
looking out
what if looking out
is the looking in
and what if every face in the world
looks like John Riley

and I trench I push I squeeze these words out
         pieces of broken glass out of the feet into the no more and I’m carrying on yes
                 these are the last words are I am done done he is gone gone the ghost I love the most is dead
                         the circle is closed I grow new toes all my eyes open I grow new roads
                                     am I am I am I there yet
                                                      would you please answer please
                                                                                 I don’t have money but I
                                                                                 have faith
                                                                                 to sell
           



june/july 2011                                                                                                                                                                                                              


I know


I know there is someone somewhere sitting at the semi-sap-green table listening to Coltrane thinking now now is it high enough thinking there must be someone somewhere sitting at the semi-sap-green table listening to Coltrane ‘cause all roads lead to Coltrane before before you fly right down. I know that there is someone somewhere sitting drawing a straight line turning to a curve sliding down thinking there must be someone somewhere sitting drawing a straight line with the hand that fails with the hand that fails and slides into a curve some things are just out of hand. I know that there is someone somewhere lying in an unmade bed barefoot leaving and leaving without leaving thinking there must be someone somewhere lying in an unmade bed leaving leafless sliding down with no one to say goodbye to. I know there is someone somewhere thinking there must be someone somewhere thinking there is someone somewhere thinking there is someone somewhere.



                                                   october 2010.





the photography taken from here: http://johncoltraneonline.wordpress.com/