The Cat and Fiddle

Notebook Poem

2010-02-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

The Oblong shutters of my windows

Have lopsided past-recurring forms.

And peer into the weary darkness

Unfettered by the twists and turns.

The Oblong shutters of my windows

Do gaze indeed with, ecstasy...

But find, ecstatic as they be

No single trace of you or me.

Milk Of Amnesia - A curiosity

2009-12-29T16:15:00.000-08:00

I am pushed aside by my own self, onto myself. The slow and deliberate collapse of an old frame built upon muddy soil. But what hope of rise shall I have? For the depths of memory have always been muddy. How can one even dare to dream such lucid stuff as to create coherent structures of thought and consciousness out of the brittle pieces of a turbulent, yet palpable, past? It is a dance, and the rhythm incarnate is the sleepless turmoil of one's own wrinkled pillow. What a ballet insomnia makes out of our midnight hours. We are the architects of our own undoing, and we plan our destruction with diligence. We choose the alchemy of our poisons, and in measured drops we feed ourselves teaspoons of Aqua Toffana. Some give it a form, others give it a sensation, most give it a name, and all quake under masochistic pleasure of self torture; a slow demise!

I gave it a form, and soon came a sensation, and the name; it was all so natural. A body followed, a smooth skinned, gracefully articulated body, the fragrant aroma of soft hair, of flowery skin, of sweet breath, intoxicating in its breathing. Big wet eyes that stare one down and upset even the stillest of hearts and engulf all tentative, if any, of resistance.

I drank! And felt elated as this sweet death rushed inside every alcove. How the feeling of warmth became present even in the utterance of the name of the thought of such actions. The silent fall of reason, and the sinking into a muddy bank of memory.

I drank! And knew that all other reality was of no importance , that truth was suspended and hollowed of its meaning. The dissolution of the ties of rationality into a boiling sea of equivocal nightmares. The hands of a thousand tribulations were clawing at my drifting body.
I drank! And feared the waving of this ocean, the gushing tide and swirling whirlpools. How far have the currents pushed me? Was there a shore to begin with? The waters soaked me up.

An immense feeling of dread and loss soon followed. It was barking at the feet of my thoughts which were all trailing directionless into some sort of terrible void. A decomposition of everything that held in place the great obelisks of meaning and understanding. With that the rip of the very fabric of self. All the colors seem to run and gather into deep pools and foamy rivers, blast of sulfurous fumes marked the spots were the very ground failed to be. The stars whirled into primordial shapes as if trying to imitate that first chaos, the geometry of perfection mirrored into the blazing ashes of our own personal doom.

After that the silence that remains is the single witness and friend and companion. Sleep and peace and silence settle like a fine film of frost on all that was animated. After the descent into death and combustion the hushed chill of motionlessness is all that is left.

The Falling or The Primordial Virginity of Mind

2008-12-26T17:58:00.000-08:00

The vaults decay, the rivers weep. We inebriate ourselves with the wine of eternity.The street creeks under footstep and aches in wooden planks, the sky burns red and clouds veer upwards. We drink, still our throats are dry. Our slumber, no more at peace, throttles in dreams of vengeance. We talk no more. The buildings compose the frostbitten air, we breath in slow, long breaths. In pain our lungs are black with memory. Still we drink. Drop by drop we drain the fluids out of our marrowless bones. We storm, and out of hidden recesses, terrible alcoves of the mind, we spur our monsters into flesh. With their teeth we tare at each other, no longer human. We are no longer human, but beasts, incapable of coordinated speech, of coordinated thought. We babble in our rationality. We tear flesh with our teeth, befallen creatures that we have rendered ourselves. Animals...no better than animals, far worse than anything that is to be found in the darkest wood. We feast on our vanity, our greed for our own image. We curse and pray to our instincts, all out of the folly of action.
The vaults decay, the rivers weep. Our arms blow red with blood, the wounds dry in sulphurs scars. We kick and shove, our limbs animated by madness. Our tongues no longer needed. We have become our own unmaking. We have soiled our humanity. Glancing in mirrors we see the reflected wolves. Our mouths bloody, our hands the same. Bend down and renounce our height. We shall walk on four legs, and bear no name, for we have lost individuality. We shall not differentiate ourselves form one another. Yet we shall kill ourselves all the same. In time we will understand the nature of our actions, and in time forget the motives of our regression. In place of thought we shall obey instinct. And my friends, I ask you, my dearest tribunal, were we not to turn to this rape sooner?

Elegy

2008-10-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

We are falling out of a marble staircase. Out, and into a marble hall where a bright light consumes and starts its way up the immaculate walls. We are racing the deluge of the culture intoxicated lot, all quivering, formless and indistinct in its oscillations. You take its course and move towards a wall of black autumn chill, your straight back arching as each step is lain. Your perplexing shape dances like a cat in the tune of some violin. As a pause is made, your frame is jolted by contradicting thoughts and you turn round. The black varnished piano makes himself a companion to myself and my bashful conversation. You turn round exposing the fine skin of some distant spice. I take up a black curtain and you slide both hands in its grasp, your delicate fingers streaming the fabric of hard texture. My breath is kept and a wave rises as it dusks your ebony tress. A slow sound of naked air rushes out into the square. The delicate aroma of your breath. We keep ourselves alive by walking, making patterns of dissolute roundabouts. Idle flashes of your smile take hold and fears sets in and bolts up into my legs. Your face is a virgin landscape carved out from within by motions set into perennial motion. The cold slides on to the waxed cobbles and rubs the orange lamplight onto your shiny shoes. The tick and tack of your feet remind me of such things as belonging and morning. My hands take shelter and my hair stands on end. We stand, moments from each other, and I hesitate. We could have danced but I found myself gazing at the ever widening rupture. You ring round a car and slip out of sight. I depart, as an abrupt sound of tire on asphalt takes note of your departure. And as you raced through winding streets I kept my eyes on you.

Parus et Prima

2008-08-09T16:41:00.000-07:00

Parus: How can we match up our thoughts to this new thing of fancy? We must take a stand, lay claim to our land, grasp it firm and in this iron clasp never falter from its drive. This is a dawn of ill colour.

Prima: And from where this current of determination, brave Parus? Must you stab at the very core of recollection to be struck dumb by your own remembrance of what was? Or do you forget what chains and ropes you have pulled and what gears and springs you have set in motion, like mortals do?

Parus: Here is my hand, behold the silvery blade that makes its extension! What great bonds have I not cut with its filmy edge...Severed the roots of, oh, so many a strands of wasted desire. Yet to my own surprise, more than once I found the very same knife inching towards my throat, ready at a moments notice to throttle me in my sleep. What of that, dear Prima? How can this be, am I not godlike and drift in the flux of universal time?

Prima: Is this face not soft and these eyes not tender? Is this hand not fragrant and this hair not like the hyacinth? You stay your tongue...Then it is true. This being so, how can you even doubt that in the act of remembering youth, old age which is jealous and livid, would not want to slice it into slivers?

Parus: Enough of such questions...I grow tired of the ambiguity of interrogation, from your part at least. I am not vexed Prima. There is no surprise in such actions, only disappointment .

Prima: How come, my lord?

Parus: When you gaze into infinity long enough you come to some conclusions. And see that change is an essential magnet for life. The mind has this as the prima mobile of the galvanization of ideas and the internal electrical stream it generates. There is no eternity! We cannot say that something is eternal in the true sense of the word. For you see, if we accept time as a forward pushing line, past, present and perspective the very essence of universal eternity is canceled from even before conception. For something to be eternal it has to be outside time, thus not being eternal or not even being aware of its temporal powers. Given the boundaries of time, something can be perennial, at its hight...like us dear Prima.

Prima: So this is the elusive formula, time and change and recollection.

Parus: Indeed, and even as we fathom upon such dilemma we change, time bends itself around our metamorphoses and severed are the old bonds. Recollection is just the twist of the knife...

The Museum Girl

2008-05-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

The hour grew late, and by the notes of a fantastic melody I strummed my steps up the marble staircase. I was behind her, I am always behind her. She made a subtle trail of coiled scent anywhere she went...it was so easy to follow, and a temptation to great to oppose. She cut the very fabric of air as she waltzed to and fro the great chamber, her steps too light and elastic to bother the floor, yet her shape was earthly enough to catch the light in such a way that it did justice to her fair, smooth skin. Her dress was in sympathy with her gentle body, tracing the shape as if it were aware of its beauty...From the slope of her neck, to the contour of her breasts, to the lines of her waist, it went in a melodious lay down her form, composing a veil sensitive to grace. No agency of time was empowered to set lines upon her brow, yet her eyes were of melancholic luster. Her voice was of some distant, sweet, reverberation as only found in deep woodland areas...near gentle streams. The gestures of her hands were intuned to some greater knowledge of form.

At the far side of the chamber was I, in quiet contemplation of the artwork that hung solemnly on the high walls. Great paintings of master craftsmen that survived ages, and yet no Renoir or Delacroix could catch my eye for more than a few waning moments. The tints on noble faces of time long passed were left livid in comparison to the verve of life that was issuing out from every rustle of a flowered dress that played this young things body. Even the flurry of colour of Signac could not overshadow the brilliancy of her hair or cheeks. No greater combination of chromatic thought had there ever been invented that matched the fine pigment of her skin, making ones mind race in all possible shades. I was bare before this display of subtle alliteration in spectral terms yet in living form. If only I had more than mere language to truly grasp the entire spectacle into one solid shape...no linguistic cage could ever set bars of letters round such grace.

A Late Lunch

2008-04-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

An effort was made upon my part, as I focused the half image, so that it became of a scaring clarity upon my retina. I have never felt the ground quake in such a manner before...'neath my helpless feet. Long sleepless hours of numbing work rendered my rationality to a timid spark, and so this paved way for lucid chimeras to play about my fancy.

Moderation was a fools game! And indeed I played a fools gamble for as long as I could remember. With dreary hands I let slip and fall card after card, in the vane hope of a untimely resurrection. No more of that my friend, no more. Look you now on what I dare behold between two of my clasped fingers! See! and let your eyes be dumb with wonder as the Queen of Hearts evades a smile. Awe, the word that comprised and compounded the very essence of the air in that single moment. Broke the vibration I did with a scuff, I did...And as I reached for the pack my hand bled in laceration as I redly palmed the next card. The King of Spades, he frowned between trickles of treacle, thick and brewing. I lifted my head.

I ran my fingers through my hair. I tried to give the impression of some internal motion, but to no avail. The narcoleptic fumes were enough to drown any sober retaliation. The whole of my cognitive ropes and pulleys were thick with tobacco and partly digested ideas. My darling half-borns....My eyes have moved up and down her face for about a quarter of an hour. Beauty was obvious, wit and so much more was long ago confirmed. Sentences of friendly voices buzzed around the jammed hinges of interest and recollection. Some voices spoke out more clearly then others, others more kind then the rest, one more true and close to my heart than all. And as I understood what folly compacted my actions and lucid, ethereal, perigrimations I drew a conclusion.

Her hand graded my shoulder, some words were addressed to me. I could hear not. I could not remove my attention from her fine hair that raced in cavalcade, of ember hues, down some length of her back and arms. With what gentleness of path, fragile veins made trail on her neck and chin, tracing outlines of nobility like in some monumental sculpture of elevated nature. In what sublime depth of calm waters did her eyes made home...I made an indistinct gesture.

With what strength I had let in my body I managed to galvanize the whole of it into an erect posture. My gaze spun wildly. And falling upon her, I saw that she was expecting an answer.
"Cigarette?" asked I, as I made for the door...

Sunrise

2008-04-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

Vestal’s living, shinning arm

Blows across a silken Heaven

Stroking strings of gentle stroking

Sounding deaf in their endeavor.

Playing nature with a bow,

Made by nature, Weeping Willow

Lying hopes upon the hopeless,

Staining tears across my pillow.

Marking dead the targets eye,

Bloody daggers dripping hollow

Pierce the sky, from star to star

Drowning me in Heavens sorrow.

Pools of plenty, rivers, gullies…

Shout my deeds of malconception,

Reap the fruits of my ill follies

Taking breath in my deception.

Dreamland music, scorn and glee

Plays and twists and turns and falls,

Throwing bolts in darkest sea,

Monstrous shaping smiles into my foults.

And your gaze beholding and forgiving

Beholds me not with eye of grace,

And your arms, gentle and receiving,

Abandon me in dreary place.

Gold the sun rises to meet a blazing sky,

To meet the massive clouds burning and forlorn,

To meet the beach washing in the sea…

To find me there, standing, all alone.

The Flowered Floor

2008-04-09T16:38:00.002-07:00

I never saw her before. A fragile frame animated by a pulsating vibration, a graceful silhouette with an elastic footfall, a twirling blur of entwined movement.
I had then no companion but folly, and in his council I let my ear indulge. Too great was my wonder and as I grew more intense in my observation of the rhetoric of movement I let slip the chains and bounds of my soliloquy.
In the midst of the symphonic chatter that now held sway over any musical sensibility, I considered the girl.
Her limbs were thin, long and branchlike, her body frail, and her cloths were mere impediments of expression. Her hair was brittle, like thin glass...it had no colour, but it was vivid. Her stare was blank, filmy blue eyes induced the illusion of sight. But this was only a cheap trick, for I could see beyond their translucent gaze, their self-induced watchfulness. Her feet were tiny, yet somehow proportion made its clandestine presence felt. Her shoes were light.
Her dance was of a mesmeric quality. The circles that were erected by her hands to the rhythm of some unheard logic, the pattern of her waltzing shape cutting pure geometry into the very fabric of accentuated time, this was pure motion animating motion. The action that in turn generates its own roots. By itself separated....

( Photo: Blinded-by-the-light / Deviant Art )

The Fleeting Glance

2008-03-31T15:20:00.000-07:00

As she greets me unexpected,
Feeble smile, enthralled, effected,
Prison from my minds own action,
Free to flee but willing capture.
From between the gaze, reflected,
Sends me flying into rapture.

What of will?
And what of dealing
With a speech that
Is unwilling?
Treasure from beyond a phrase,
Gently spoken in a gaze.

And her writing,
Bliss departure
From this world in sinful rapture
And a cage of iron molding,
For my will, a willing capture,
All my frame and all my stature.

So what dense
And hazy thrilling
Of that mind which is unwilling?
Calling forth! Alas, half wanting
The endeavor of this writing,
Undecise,but still undoubting.

Glass-house Mechanism

2008-03-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

He sought the last breath that was fleeting his efforts. Gasped was his mouth, and all a-quiver. The empty Glass-house was unfolding the decadence of his actions in a language that could not be translated into speech. Hollowed, his face brewed pestilence...The cogs of rusty metal churned out the last remnants of his rationality. He was drunk upon the same essence of hard spirits as before. He knew the feeling well. It started as an upright bolt in his chest, and prolonged into a daze of the mind. As the mingled aroma of sweat with saintly perfume made its ethereal form felt into his memory so did his body break to the slander of decay. What great exaltation made away with his thought? To what powers may one call when, heavy with the drink of passed shapes rekindled, the whole of vision meshes with folly? The dream of folly! The name in which all action and reaction are clearly seen. That name, which no spot of equivocal nature can retain... Dispelled was the deliverance found in that one name! And the Glass-house made its shape grow tighter around him. To the point of collapsing into one's self, to that abyssal effort of making one's self into vivid words...He spoke

Her face was white, and her hands were white, and her skin had the smell of a cool springs morning. The dazzling spectacle of her eyes rendered me breathless...she was of such a singular mold, of such grace that even the mere air she touched became scented with the fine powder of Jasmin. She sat there, her hands unfolding into a gentle embrace, a soft enmeshment into a nature more pure that the mind could conceive. And how could I, bewildered and drunk, even begin to fathom the translucent paramounts of the Divine composed? I could do no more than be amazed...and as my gasping breath, suspended in my chest, lingered the illusion of motion, her lips parted and the likeness of Heaven was created. Unseen flutters of dreams broke into twirling dances...falling...rising...and the translated speech of these reveries took flesh and shape, and in this flurry I fell in love with their evanescence .

The grown of the glass panes arched into long reverberations all around him. All shaking, the distorted half-light played the notes of discordance. Spinning off into the distance was the sound of violins. Soft, entangled with the sharp Glass-house music, the maelstrom of perjured memory consumed him.

The Spectral Lovers

2008-02-26T16:09:00.000-08:00

Spectral lovers entwined above the bed,

In the feeble rays of morning,

When the darkness slowly fled.

Shapeless palms of airy beauty

Met before the darkly dawn…

Set before the dying beauty

Of the night in brightly morn…

And the whispers of there features,

And their eyes bereaved, benight;

Lore to learn without a teacher,

Love that fled before the light…

And the glossy eye of conscience,

Closing like a feeble film

Over hopes of grassy meadows,

Drowning dead in fluid stream.

Perfume, sweet, of withered flowers

Issue from the lover’s glances,

And falls dead in morning hours

Like the faded, dreamhood chances.

So forsake the ghostly romance,

And resign to nightly reverie.

Place a lock and bare the door,

For the dream shall happen…Nevermore.

Spectral lovers dancing to a placid theme,

Parting ways in newly sunshine,

While I wake from darkly dream.

A. W. Street

2008-02-12T14:07:00.001-08:00

Shapelessly, the ground arched its heavy dust into the Grey hues of an ominous sky. No song of any bird could pierce the heavy set silence.A stillness loomed over the leafless trees, the broken down houses of the town, the war like rubble on its streets, the glassless windows, grassless lawns. Our story starts here, in the desolate place of Heaven in its ruin, a pale shadow of its former glory, a starless silhouette of an unshaped thing. For on its windswept streets, barren in their simple defeat, life found root, a timid mumble, an indistinct whisper of life, took form out of a mouth so dry and wordless that even nature be perverted.

The street bared the name Alexandra Withershins, a most unpleasant corner of the world. The sullen houses stood gray and silent like the burdened statues of dead poets, their roofs flung to one side or the other. The trees were bent and twisted in peculiar angles and bizarre shapes, black monsters sticking their claws into the milky fog, for this town was a harbor once, but not anymore, for you see, since the fish started running away and the horses dying life ground to a halt.

Through the heavy mist a lighthouse would protrude, like a decayed dagger, a place of sorrow watching over an ocean of the same essence. It was to be the set piece of the guiding light of seamen … now a rusted ghost without any light or power. Its tortured shape would loom over the falling houses of Alexandra Withershins Street.

On its corner the most unimaginable thing did sprout from the lifeless soil…A timid little white flower. And by pure chance it came to rise at the feet of a young girl, her palms at her mouth as she noticed the miracle. Her name was Alice L. , And she lived there for as fare as she could recall. Alice was a girl of no common rate, witty and clever as a girl her age could ever be.

“I shall call you milkmaid.”Said she plucking the flower and placing it behind her ear.

Then with unbridled joy she ran up the quiet street and up to a house, which had a menacing looking tree growing out of its front walls.

“Curious thing you are, little milkmaid.”She said gently stroking the petals that were taking refuge into her hair that bore the smell of cherries.

“ I do wonder where did you find the courage to grow where all others would perish…But rest assured, Andy shall provide a suitable answer.”

She pushed the door and made her way through the maze of branches that filled the house. The smell of wetness was present and the lukewarm feel of decay played its tentacles over the walls and furniture. Alice with ease and care made her way into the kitchen where the pungent smell of mold met her delicate nostrils. It was as poor and as war-like as the rest of that town. Empty coverts, a rickety table with some horrid jars, some unwashed glasses and a plate soiled and chipped. From a dim corner came a hard breathing. And as she stepped foreword the shape of a man in a wheelchair came through the bluish gloom.
“There you are, Andy! You really startled me…”
The man in the wheelchair came forth and the pale light filtered through the dirt on the windows revealed a mockery of human nature…Andy was an old man with the face of a young child, only misshapen and wrinkled beyond comparison. His countenance deformed and twisted, with a crooked mouth, half opened, glossing from the saliva dripping from it. He was unfinished and half-born!
“Alice, what a delight…Care for some raspberry jam? Said he in a strange parental voice, although with a groan from his throat.”
“No, thank you…But nice of you, anyway.”
“Oh then probably you would like some cream tarts…I know you always enjoyed cream tarts…they must be here somewhere” he said looking with a dull eye over the empty coverts.
“Actually that is not the reason why I came her for…I wanted you to take a look at something…”And she took the little milkmaid from her cherry scented hair.
“Ah, I see you found a friend…How this small gift came to be I do not know…if that’s what your question be, young Alice.Our little Heaven hasn’t sprouted life in almost half a century…when the last horse was born.”
“You’re lying!”
“Indeed I am, young miss…”said the half-born in a dim smile.”It is alive for you and your joy, dear child.
“Considering I was expecting an answer like that, I shall believe you”Said Alice putting the flower back behind her ear.
“Oh…I almost forgot, have you seen those two?”
“If you mean do I know what mischief are they up to, I do not know.”
“Ah, boys will be boys…but if you do see them, tell them not to be late for dinner.”
“If I bump into them…”
“Ah, you should be more open minded Alice, besides Arthur had a shine for you since tender childhood.”
“Arthur had a liability from tender childhood,”said Alice more to herself.
“Right, I will do that Andy, do take care…”And she swept off leaving the gentle monster to his own thoughts.

The Grey hues of the sky extended their arms down on her footsteps .She was facing a courtyard in total abandonment .The wall that went around it was broken down and its brick insides were visible, like dried blood. Feral, dead, vegetation crowded the place, like a maze of small fingers grasping each other .A stone basin was in the middle of this all, water filling it to the brim.
Abusing your little brother again Arthur?”Said Alice in her usual sweet voice.
Two boys were at the foot of this basin, one kneeled over the other.”Charming Alice! A pleasure to see you…as…always…”said Arthur stressing his last words, like in some great effort.
“What are you doing there, Arthur?”
The young man stepped away from his brother in a calm fashion, grinning at Alice as he did.
Our young girls eyes were met with a most grizzly sight: About two dozen hefty bolts of iron were lodged in the boys body. He was bleeding and had a gruesome expression on his face. His eyes staring into nothingness, head lopsided…
“Do you enjoy modern art, sweet girl? Said Arthur pointing to his ‘creation’.
“Always had a fancy for the French painters…”sighed Alice
“I call it ‘The Innocence of a Doubtful Heart."

“I never had much love for modern art…”

Tetra

2008-02-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

"Come what may" said once the thief,
In adoration of the mercy of God.
And lifted the work of moonless night,
Fled along the cobbled street on
Which the oil lamps faded
His steps.

I fear not God!For we are
Are not of the same stuff.
And like in Aristotle's thought
No "third man" can ever join us
- As he said to Plato, and we
All believed -

No man is the equal of another
And we are fooled to believe
That all sorts of rules are made
To drive us from ourselves.
We are sewn to each other,
And anon.

The words of the priest prophet
And teacher are hollow vessels
No experience can be translated.
We are animals of no rationality,
And our language is that of
Action.

The Basilisk

2007-12-07T17:08:00.000-08:00

Sobbing slithers sinking slowly
Shifting shapes of silhouettes,
Subtle shapes, secure and lonely
Slit the air and its regrets.

Spoken language, syllables...
From a tongue forked in two slivers,
Silver sparks from the sharp fangs
Call some stranger here of thither.

Tether, line, spinning soundly,
Spiral wrapping someone's senses.
Like the voice of ill intent...
Phantom spoken from the fences.

Sadness, sorrow and the rest,
Play their music in his speech.
Silken stringed, this puppeteer
Draws his puppets in his reach.

Skin like scales, scarlet gleaming
Spew the smell of scented smoke.
Coiling coils around the body,
Closing life with simple stroke.

Swearing sentence like an oath,
Sacred place, enclosed...outspread.
Tempting guests in undergrowth,
Speaking stories...to the dead.

London Rain

2007-12-04T10:38:00.000-08:00

London Rain

The sullen streets they mourn the noon
That's caught behind the Heaven's gloom.
And wept the cobbles are, from bearing
All those tears the clouds are wearing.

And all the trees are wet and Grey,
Lifeless watchers of the day,
They spy the sadness of the alleys,
Remnant of the hills and valleys.

And if a hope, might, weary rise
From this thought of sad demise,
Just an echo shall remain
Stifled in the London Rain.

Ode To November

2007-11-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

The cobbled streets shine in the tragic lamplight.They extend in corridors and endless pathways, leading into perdition.No trace of solace could be found on the grey walls that can bearly hold their own, fleeting, grace.Empty and spaceless the street unfolds, November. The damp sidewalk gapes into fine cracks, that seem to stream up and beyond unclear limits.The sound of running water, the trickle of some unseen stream, the dead waters of the street.Falling, crooked rooftops loom over the bent buildings, grey dusk and the storming crows, November.Trees that reach out in a hundred arms with a thousand fingers, grasping the fog that milks over the city, unholy watchers of the evening twisting their bodies into demented shapes against the fading hues of mock colour.Tiny shards of glassy rain cut our troubled faces, and the wind licks and salts our heavenly lacerations.The loneliness of the streetlamps pride into abandonment, November.No prayers for November...

"(...) Along the reaches of the street held in a lunar synthesis, whispers lunar incantations dissolve the floors of memory and all its clear relations its divisions and precisions.Every streetlamp that I pass beats like a fatalistic drum, and through the spaces of the dark midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium."( T. S. Eliot - Rhapsody on a Windy Night )

November's cold chain constricts my wake, and sings me its lullaby.Once heavy eyes close up their lashes the specters of insomnia take form out of the shapeless grey window frames, November.Black smoke from old chimneys, black ravens and grey skies, November my firing squad.

The Derelict

2007-10-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

Dear reader,
I should make this an opening post, one in which I welcome you in a kind of warm hospitality, to better suit your mood; and to state that I am here to please your eye with some flight of fancy.This is not the case, though...Here in this little wretched corner, that I affectionately dubbed "The Cat and Fiddle" you will not find solace, and I do not intend to write in a form of mock poesy* to amuse you.But still there is hope for your satisfaction with the "unique"...I am sure that among my downward spirals of thought you shall find an odd fascination with the very things that make my heart resonate in a myriad of tones, that are crafted in such an architecture it will either leave you enchanted or in little awe.So, with these trifles out of the way we may begin to further follow...

It was past five o'clock...I was the only one in a party of eight that still complained about the fact that i did not have my tea ( and that was of meager importance, because I was the only one to keep to such a custom ).We were on the outskirts of this lovely city of ours, in a middle of a grassy field.A great mass of clouds were towering their frames to stifle the dusky sky.And in this tightening of nonexistent tendons the feeble red glare of the sun managed to find it's way through rough openings.We were dragging our feet through the fine mud that was just beneath the tall grass...There was a lot of cursing, even from the ladies in our lot.The wind didn't help our state, but only amplified our inert anxieties.On its gentle Eastern breeze it brought the stench of decay.Waste and animal death...for you see, we were near a great rubbish pit ( one of the largest of our city, I believe ).
Here ought to be the part where I reveal the purpose of our being there, why such a large party? and other information leading towards some paroxistical chain of events.But that is all of too little bother...For right in front of me, stifling my eyes, erecting itself over my sight was the shape of a derelict abbey.Its form was all that was left of it...great "murs" of geometrical beauty heaved themselves up into the air.A delicate balancing act of weather worn arcades and columns, and the spectacle of the sheer mass of bricks was enough to stamp the feel of tininess unto anyone who dared to openly view this as such.
It was empty...only its walls remained. Large holes punctured them, once stain glass adorned their insides, now only voided sockets and lidless windows staring inside and out of wilderness.A great, cracked dome broke itself over our heads.The shattered beauty of skilled masons now the perch of crows and ravens.Dozens upon dozens lined the jagged teeth of red brick which made out from the base of the dome.Malevolent, black, staring us down with an evil eye, croaking seldom, startled upon our intrusion into their solitary den. Flapping ill wings, harvesters of decay the birds that are the crow and raven, the watchers of the derelict.
Three large gateless entrances made light in the western wall...The sun was tumbling down in a yellow glow.It was not cheerful, not even melancholic, but diseased.The sky was putting out its daytime light in sickness, a pestilence of the clouds, of the whole clime, which blew on us with a wind of plague, a stench of unbirth.

This was all played out in front of me last summer, and my dearest reader due note that even in the most abandoned corners you might stumble upon, chance and happening are subjects to be ruled out.As I found out later on, this brought on great joy to me, a gift maybe...for I do believe in the stuff that memories are gained and lost upon, in such stuff that, even if impenetrable, is still mirrored back in fancy, and fancy turned, by nothing less than subtle alchemy, into living flesh.

Yours A. Aron