attuned to sunday morning birdsong i walk the mostly deserted street. inside it is all plaintive violin as i sit down with a mug of strong black tea and open my notebook to write. there is an attractive woman with short, boyish blonde hair standing alone beside the white counter upon which a pot of pink flowers refuses to let us forget. i do not want to not notice how her black tights trace the female in her form as the glass door behind her pours the gray on in. when i next look up after submerging my pen she is holding a brown cup of hot chocolate topped with a pale feather boa of whipped cream, both hands bracing the brown saucer as the coil of whipped cream wiggles like a woman pulling herself into something sexy. if i woke up, i woke up having wasted vast swathes of my life, blank pages the author never filled. all along the way the walk is sprinkled with hints of spring and for some reason i am haunted by what the scientists say. i woke up one morning and read that we may soon have more ocean and no fish and i still do not know what could i possibly do when i remain so fiendful & friendless and the imposter's chatter seldom lets me in? stroking my useless gratitude, how else can i continue? my attention returns to the songs i will not label. alone on a secret side street, i close my eyes for steps at a time, as if holding my breath to dive underwater, that other world you can only visit but never live, the world that admits you for the exact price of one breath. i recognize how fortunate i am to be safe, warm, and fed, surrounded by a beauty that i know will end. this morning i am led by song, pulled by a beak through the top of my skull, like a fisherman sitting in a tree reeling in my mind.
i sit down next to an old, camouflaged man trying not to appear at the end of the counter. he squeaks a greeting at me but otherwise sits there quietly, not reading or talking or looking at a phone, just sitting there like a stubbed cigarette, facing the window. outside, cloud men in candy-colored hard hats study the forecast's alphabet. above them a line is drawn between storm & clarity. below them a young woman saunters down the damp block, her black monologue interrupted with a burgundy dress & a brilliant blue scarf, head turned, her dark chocolate gaze drinking in the windows, long, wavy chestnut colored hair tucked to one side, in one hand she clasps a zebra striped gift bag, sad as she passes, she arrives too soon at the corner of blue as her bus arrives just after, to take her too soon to where she doesn't long to go. after awhile the old camouflaged man stands & walks out the door, leaving behind a camouflaged handbag on the counter. i watch him amble across the slick street with his taped up metal cane and wonder if i should tell him that he forgot his bag until he approaches a bland young man, smoking on the corner of blue. the old camouflaged man asks him for a cigarette and the bland young man reaches into a pocket, gives him one, and lights it. they talk briefly until the young man's bus arrives and the old camouflaged man ambles back across the street, where he is met by a clean cut barista wearing black jeans, a blazing red plaid patterned shirt & fresh white sneakers. i cannot hear what he says but i can see the barista, his back towards me, gesticulating quite expressively, as if conducting a sad, rumpled little orchestra of one as the old camouflaged man stands there & simply nods, the cigarette dangling from his lips. the barista smartly turns and goes back inside as the old camouflaged man mutters, puts the half-finished cigarette in an ashtray on one of the sidewalk tables, and goes back in to retrieve his camouflaged bag. i watch him come back outside and sit down on the filthy green pillow of a wet wooden chair pushed up against a brick wall just beside the cafe as i wonder what's up with the camouflage, and how what hides you in one place announces your presence in an other. he doesn't appear to have any money but his bag is small and i don't see a shopping cart nearby. who knows, i think, as he ambles away into the newly arrived rain, each one of them remaining a poorly hidden mystery.
couple casually strolls past my window, both of them wearing flannel pajama onesies, the guy's all crayola blue with silver snowflakes, the woman's black and pasted with alien faces. just outside the glass i see stoic palms filled with crystal heaps. this morning i heard neither song nor caw in this much quieter city. we wrap ourselves to venture out & receive this dazzling white gift, reluctantly unwrapped. i take my lens into the limb maze to let my gaze penetrate its hushed circle. inside at the table in front of me, i watch a middle-aged father, dressed all in black, train a camera on his little boy, sipping a hot chocolate across the table, who tilts his cute, knit hatted head from side to side, offering angles of sweetness. i read recently that men aren't supposed to take selfies, but i feel the need to document my presence, if only to prove i exist to myself, as vast swathes of my time here have roamed free from lens, never captured, as if my youth had been an unidentified species whose existence was never suspected by science and was only recently discovered. i wonder where the birds go when it snows, i think, when i finally see the day's first crow. i watch a family pull their child on a makeshift sled and remember when i was a boy i used to go sledding in an old graveyard, screaming past those tilted stones whose names & dates were slowly, inexorably made illegible with each passing storm.
daisies & lilies make nice in a vase. bud studded, the trees already. three white vehicles in a row turn into the curve in an accidental procession that i receive as a sign to respect the purity of chance. the sky dangled above our crib, pillow soft & baby blue, is an infant's blanket to keep us sentimental. crow clans abandoned the afternoon, no doubt knowing the gorging that was to come. a mass evacuation of consciousness as the light weakened into a glass that could only hint of lemon. i stepped into its absence as if walking along the exposed floor of an about to tsunami sea, shopping its damp, previously concealed bed for gifts just prior to the devastation of its violent unfurling. we darkened down at the beginning of the year, like a baby so new we couldn't trust its paternity. a lone crow struts across the wet street, wings tucked tight like a general's hands clasped behind his back as he surveys the battle scene. a young woman's smile competes to outshine her bright blue sneakers keep interrupting the overcast's dull gray drone. a little slick of oil spreads its wings just before tip off, a miniature dracula who glides down from mossy limb to join its pecking coven. clouds dispersed by hard smiling sun. a flowing coffee dark mane dipped in bronze appears, then is gone, locked inside a box of wheels, i am given only her departure. yet another crow conference in the leafless tops of the tall trees, i can count all the attendees, as a well met murder reports the plan. near noon, streaks of undecided shadows dripped along the street. this time fill, this minute heap, this screen, this page. insouciant crow waits for the last second to hop out of the way. i had plans to ignore the maniacally inflated super guacamole day. i would pelt them with pits if i could. another crow saunters past the broad window as if to ask, do you have anything for me? fog crept in when i wasn't dreaming. raining lightly but not light, we made ourselves at home in these conditions and then did everything we could to alter and disrupt them. lulled by the illusion of a solidity that seemed to last, it was always precarious here, it never stopped, but we didn't care, the pause long enough to hypnotize yet always poised to unleash its change. you are not safe. this is not steady. the unreasonable will happen, has happened, is happening, now. the need for more beckoned cataclysm. your bloom was always brief. we came here seeking life and announced it with flower. petals pronounced the word for us in the language of color. strolling through a museum of longing, admiring its collection of husks, only ever haunted by what's not really here, the mind abhors its empty halls, its echoes & shadows. walking upon what has died while those who walk upon us collapse upon the dead they walked on. cemetery upon cemetery, pregnant with cemetery. fake you's falsely occupy the waiting room. this plural is not we. i watch him wave past the windows from inside his music. we won't look back at what we've done. the bark accepts noon's sun filled kiss as a gull intrudes like a sheriff at the scene of a murder. swimming through my lens, wings stroke the shine, while inside, horns continue their lament. light reaches them like the hand of a ghost. it is the reaching that keeps them in between, always almost touching, tortured with longing but never warm, just something cool across the cheek. another brush with absence. i took my conscience for a walk.
i watched this for some reason last night, don't know why. the affluent nose's nostalgia for the good old days of cocaine in new york, before crack blew it all to smithereens. released in 1992 but aurally stained with an 80's soundtrack, desperately groping for the profound, finding cheap synths & tinny electronic drums instead. how many movies were ruined by their soundtracks & is there anything we can do to save them? paul loves susan's legs, (as well he should) and the camera willem's torso. i could melt in susan's gaze, but alas, there weren't enough close-ups to bring that simmer to a boil. i still get over the strangeness of willem defoe, and apparently, neither can we, hence a long & productive career. i love how his face changes with the light, how positively angelic when only glancing, the feline gaze struggling & failing to fully soften his brutal, alpine cheeks, and then the light stops dancing, stops flirting, gets serious, and then he smiles, too wide, the face contorting, careering toward ghoulish, too many tombstone teeth, a mouth full of cemetery. the movie made me feel like i was snooping on someone else's delusional glow about how wonderful things were when the wealthy didn't kill us for their high. our feelings grade the stories we write. i liked this scene pictured below.
they once were a couple, torn apart by drugs, kept apart by sobriety, accidentally brought together by circumstances. he has remained in love and has selectively edited his memories to preserve it. she has revised the love out of the story so she can write a new one without him in it. he insists on love and she insists on pain. they are clearly both right & wrong. there is more than a table between them. a column that refuses to budge, resolutely blocks them. trajectories intersecting, like beams of light on top of a building, crossing in the cloudy night sky. one emerging from darkness, the other descending into. he cannot find the latch that would unlock the gate between him and the woman in his life who is also ascending. in a world of strings, the puppet is devoted to luck and so, seeks a teller of fortunes. this will all end in blood & death, but then life & light gets its chance. don't see this.
