Trust you, trust you to find amongst all this light the one dark strand of your heart.
You seek out that inward shelter, refuge from any gaze, a still point in the world's turning. To escape one's inward gaze, too.
'Sheltered, priviliged, mysteriously stalled life'
---JCO.
~~~
There was a perfect tune-you'd ask Bob if it wasn't so cheesy. It was in the old black and white French Robinson Crusoe story. The dubbing made it stranger than it probably was. But there was also a sense of an intense desire to reach home entwined with a profound desire to remain a stranger, to be forever one of those 'given up for lost' people so that he could always make a dramatic entry, savour the surprise on loved one's faces. That moment imagined, in the desert, was more real than memory, even. The memory of the future, of the back garden shade, the sinking back into a comfortable chair, the great restoration work that goes on all around the central emptiness of a life.
He'll take the small hours, the abstract designs, the free-floating down Regent's canal, the light flooding through the trees down onto his face; one hand in shade, the other in the light; the movement of light on the dark water's surface, the sudden appearance of a plastic bottle, discarded thoughtlessly, as he dances in and out of a reverie, the changing of the seasons running like a film over his eyes, remembered with perfect ease.
He would recall other journeys, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, the dense interweaving of canals that could mysteriously connect two streets in ways that pedestrians could scarcely imagine, or cut through them like a diagonal. Or the Thames, down towards the forgotten docks, the blackened history, the drizzle of rain fresh on his open face, the sense of being alive, of growing old, of roads not taken.
He'd walk, one hour north. London. To get the sun out of his eyes. Find the dark strand, the unused stations of the heart.
There is no culture, there are no norms here. Me, myself and I. What do I need? What do you need (only incidentally, strategically, so to speak)? Let's do it, then forget I ever knew you. It will be like tomorrow. We live in this timeless world. When you run out of space, time is all you have.
The further colour recedes in time and space the more it glows. Golden memories.
You seek out that inward shelter, refuge from any gaze, a still point in the world's turning. To escape one's inward gaze, too.
'Sheltered, priviliged, mysteriously stalled life'
---JCO.
~~~
There was a perfect tune-you'd ask Bob if it wasn't so cheesy. It was in the old black and white French Robinson Crusoe story. The dubbing made it stranger than it probably was. But there was also a sense of an intense desire to reach home entwined with a profound desire to remain a stranger, to be forever one of those 'given up for lost' people so that he could always make a dramatic entry, savour the surprise on loved one's faces. That moment imagined, in the desert, was more real than memory, even. The memory of the future, of the back garden shade, the sinking back into a comfortable chair, the great restoration work that goes on all around the central emptiness of a life.
He'll take the small hours, the abstract designs, the free-floating down Regent's canal, the light flooding through the trees down onto his face; one hand in shade, the other in the light; the movement of light on the dark water's surface, the sudden appearance of a plastic bottle, discarded thoughtlessly, as he dances in and out of a reverie, the changing of the seasons running like a film over his eyes, remembered with perfect ease.
He would recall other journeys, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, the dense interweaving of canals that could mysteriously connect two streets in ways that pedestrians could scarcely imagine, or cut through them like a diagonal. Or the Thames, down towards the forgotten docks, the blackened history, the drizzle of rain fresh on his open face, the sense of being alive, of growing old, of roads not taken.
He'd walk, one hour north. London. To get the sun out of his eyes. Find the dark strand, the unused stations of the heart.
There is no culture, there are no norms here. Me, myself and I. What do I need? What do you need (only incidentally, strategically, so to speak)? Let's do it, then forget I ever knew you. It will be like tomorrow. We live in this timeless world. When you run out of space, time is all you have.
The further colour recedes in time and space the more it glows. Golden memories.
2 comments:
great catching up with your writing.
thank you, anon. you know, your voice sounds strangely familiar.
keep well,
b.
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