Thursday, June 25, 2009

streams

Let it all come out, slowly drifting up towards the surface; it is not real, it is not real but it is not unreal either, however it feels; we slowly wade through it all, towards the changing flat on the tenth floor, we look out into the atrium filled with moss, with decaying dead flowers and dead water. But then we're not there. The sudden changes, the kaleidoscopes and the running clouds, the waters smashing against the flood defences, the watery graves, the grave brown landscapes in which we crawl and hope for a better future that won't be ours, maybe we are not what we are, we project, we project and see what's not there, we invent significance, we make up as we go and invent god and our fellow man, we drag ourselves across the plains, in search of what is not there and we know not, we see the possible enemy, the possible dinner, the possible brothersister enemy and we bristle and hiss, attack is the best defence, yesterday we were one, today we are two, tomorrow we are none and many.

The light glare dazzles, we hide in the cool dark place, we ask again but there is no answer. The path has been hidden and we no longer know. The beads fall one by one. We know not, we know but on we go. In the glade there is a house where my uncle lives in dreams and I sometimes visit. A room is waiting, or another room. I walk across the house whispering names of long gone people, there is an old black and white television with news of the Carupano uprising, a picture of a priest holding a dying soldier. Outside the window there is a path that leads up into the clouds to Los Nevados. It is calling me, it is calling me but the moment is not here yet. Lie down, play cards, whisper names of long gone people, stare outside towards the unseen distant sea down there in the mist. Glow in the dark, sunset moth, be away. The apartment on the tenth floor after the four-dimensional lift is still there, is still waiting.

Walk a little closer, see the fairground set up on the motorway, the mountains in the distance speckled with forest fires, the tall buildings in the city down below still burning. There are freaks and invisible men and meeting yourself as an old man and fierce animals being tamed and a woman with two heads, one of which is yours, all come in, all come in. But I walk away, not wanting to find myself as an old man just yet. I walk stumbling on the broken tarmac and stand on the hard shoulder looking down at the still smouldering buildings, the smoke rising in the distance. When is the end of the world? Have the gods given us any notice of it coming?

Monday, June 22, 2009

I do not exist, she said

Frances, she said her name was. Twenty five, perhaps twenty six; I didn't know anyone so young with that name. She came in the room, she had something to say to the person who was with me. We were all lying on the enormous couch and she snuggled against me. 'We have met', I said. Possibly. Her lips seemed to form the words 'However, I do not exist'. I asked, had she said something? No, she hadn't. She was now wrapped in discussion with my friend, but still snuck against me, my arm around her shoulder, never looking at me but letting me know she was aware of my presence and contact. And then suddenly she had to leave. I stood up and walked to the wall, where a paper was stuck with an email address, 'frances-something-at-me.com'. The 'something' was just a couple of letters and numbers.

I woke up. It was a hot sweaty night, I was uncomfortable and restless, worrying about the situation of my trying to buy a flat, which seemed to be getting nowhere in ever more intrincate, coruscated ways. Then her image struck me. No, I hadn't given her the face of someone I knew, or had seen on the streets. She was as real as life, except she wasn't.

And at some point I found myself in the large room again, on the same enormous couch, sorting out bits of paper, when she turned up. "Hello. I'm back", she said, and lay next to me, looking at the bits of paper that I was dealing with and which I eventually gathered in one bundle and put aside, turned to her to see her clear eyes fixed on mine. I knew it wasn't real, she was not there and I wasn't either, but such is the nature of existence anyway. Our small story is brief, a flash of lightning between two infinite voids, and while we are here we ask questions so much bigger than ourselves, do things good and bad and then.. it's over. I was in that room knowing it did not exist and I was not there and I would be thrown back in my dingy North London room soon enough. I touched her hair, she felt real enough. "I'm only dreaming of you", she said... "but it doesn't matter".

At some deep, deep level, way beneath the surface, in the darkness the tide was beginning to change and rise and the current to fill the channels with tireless dark waves. But that was quickly receding as the world was becoming less indistinct, the fact that I'd left the radio on, the world service and the grey light of dawn slowly forcing themselves on to me. I called out, "Frances? Where are you? Who, what, are you?" but the light was coming through the window and the radio whispering news of the war in Afghanistan and the urge to empty my bladder were beginning to take over.

Monday, June 01, 2009

dreamt of you

I dreamt of you
Again

I dreamt of you
And you were as real as life,
as fresh as the morning
as real as life

you were there in front of me
you spoke with the wisdom of another place 
another time,
another life

you looked at me with the love
and understanding
of those who've seen beyond
And I could but cry.... 

I dreamt of you
again

you were as real as life
itself.