... from some State of Mind
Atlantic wisps, winter to spring
Wintertime
A crisp clear Garfunkel day in wooden pagoda, Central Park, Looking south toward the city. Sun disappears and comes in lines, Blocked by buildings. A lone sax appears on a rocky rise and lets out its plaintive wail. Church bells play Farrah Jacka. The sun vanishes again, mate’s running low. Children continue playing. The wintry sax bursts out again into song.
Overseen on triumphal arch, wash sq pk, g.w.: “Let us raise a standard to which the honest and wise can repair. The event is in the hand of God”…
From callous americano counsel back to morning runs overlooking liberty island + the yellow boats in and out, slow cars moving up FDR.. Frosty moments frozen in time on cool clouded January days. Walkers bundled up and getting where they need to go.
In love bushwick nights, slow and long, nina bookstores and second-floor booths. Here and gone, bad for the spleen.
*
On federal ground, between African and Asian art museums. Sun sinking fuzzy behind clouds, a marble facade rising up to meet it. Earlier, Simone Bolivar in a triangle plaza by quadrangle headquarters, ground zero. In and out greetings and bag checks, curious looks and quiet, mutual deference.
Too deferential, the judge whispers in chambers, post-conviction. And a chapter endnote, no more than a page, on the non-adversarial legal systems of the Orient. Then, Lochner. Which is to say, if dogs run free.
They don’t here, and miniature evergreens shoot out of grecian urns. Pairs of lovers love on by. Singular wooden benches plunge their knotted legs into patterned brick; planes keep their steady course across the horizon; birds cleave to their wintry wheelings. A feather becomes a jet stream becomes a sign. Signs and symbols are tumbling out of the firmament, fixing me to their form. And they fit, ever so.
*
Spidery trees on 95 north, Kaiser Permanente looms sudden & obvious, mother & son pierced by light shards shining. Profile of a man sitting leaning in the dark, and lit, by soft LED glowing. Baltimore 1/2 mile, headlights along cement curve, midsummer March night.
Chevrolet and Cola are unto themselves and beyond, signs within a certain technology of power. And so are the softly swaying fronds in the jungle night dark and twinkling, said the vassal of the queen, the high priestess of Beirutian descent, New Orleans debutante, Sissy Newton.
handsome and kind’s how i remember her then i got to a place where she called me her friend and then once again it wouldn’t move forward i didn't see me when i opened the door
Spring
Utter shouk and sun, popped-out biking glasses and shirtless sunday markets. Sitting down happily by some solitary man, saying hello to a sun-spangled classmate
Laughter comes from open air friendships, ramshackle and well-lit. He doesn’t know. We don’t think he knows. No, he can’t know, can he? No. Of course I know, don’t I? They’re looking at him. He’s good looking. I mean what is that? What is what? I think it’s an aura thing.
Cat-sitting log, Day 1: Otter breaks into the goodie bag, tears it down from now-crooked nail, remorseless + now not eating dinner
Until, temporarily becoming indisposed, Mother Earth said Here, carry my load And down the earth fell - and did explode
*
Like two mountain lions of the sea, sentinels of the northeast tip of nowhere, facing caribbean, africa, europe, north america, they crawled, scraped, and found their rest ‘twixt two half-cleaved rocks, above the sucking, continuous tide. A bird. A fisherman. A boat. The sun. Rock-racked succulents.
A sweaty night sighing In one hammock among many All caked and heat-stilled 'Neath thatched-roof jungle night
The locals hack down branches in big boots + jeans, machete scabbards slapping against the backs of thighs, as gringos1 in flip-flops take in the scene from shade with coffee and long, white cords, waiting on breakfast.
*
A cloudy morning, sleepless, and a walk down the beach to where the river meets the mar. Sunset’s revelers have all gone to sleep and the only thing left smoking is a log from last night’s fogata. Locals, employees clear the sand of beer bottles then brush it into long, smooth tresses. A hunched raptor vacates the sandy sea bank upon my approach and takes up residence in some fronds. A tree trunk, washed ashore, caressed by the white’s furthest reach, looks exactly like a giant’s bone, its narrow, strong, gently-curving length broadening out at either end with junctures in mind.
Past the fishing village, shanties looking out, is the river and the transition point. The surf pours into a narrow channel over which I step, then broadens out into a lagoon, which becomes the river, which disappears beneath a flat white bridge, beyond, up to its source. The banks are jungle - mangroves, palms, leaves above, and I’ve been warned of cocodrilos. Indeterminate hooved beings move about in the dense grass behind a wood fence bordering. The occasional car passes over the bridge in the distance.
The water is still and dark and mysterious. A circling ripple and breach is a cormorant, fishing. Vultures come loping toward me on twin haunches, looking for all the world like a pair of velociraptors. I toss a stick at a little tweeter who won’t shut the fuck up..
A family from the other side of the river comes quietly down the shoreline, and we share the spit of sand between tossing and silence, salt and silt, all of us looking in. The men submerge to their heads, a pair of cocodrilos. The children cast me curious looks, there with my furious expression and bamboo length, ready to meet the river, paddle up into the mist.
*
That’s the thing, it’s a way of feeling more and a way of feeling less.
*
Goodbye coastal madhouse With an alarm, at last, And coffee and mango to salve the spirits Goodbye arch-ringed courtyard, Tiles wet from watering, Cats stretched on stone Adios al mar y al sol Al azul y al verde Vendedores agresivas y amorosas Goodbye to the Parque, Where costeñitas, at last, Before dark fragrant cab rides nowhere
*
The clouds are forest-cities in the sky And the sun prints their dark doubles On the glinting metal sheet of sea The shadow a testament to the body Its contours to the light Its canvas to God
***
What we b grokking, these days:
Autobiography
Miles Davis, Miles: The Autobiography (easier said than done, but believe in yourself, we guess, and if u need to kick a nasty heroin habit, shut yourself in a shed for 2 weeks)
Richard Wright, Black Boy (grew up starving jim crow south, autodidact, utterly underrated cultural & intellectual ICON)
Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life (“When they stopped killing witches, witches ceased to exist”; “A person who can understand can comprehend why, and that leaves no field for condemning”; etc)
Abolition(ists)
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Angela Davis, Charles Dickens, Mariame Kaba, Tobi Haslett, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Saidiya Hartman, Alec Karakatsanis (guess what they all have in common?)
Filmz
Birds of Passage, The Young and the Damned, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Once Upon a Time in the West, Killer of Sheep
“GRINGO” comes from the mex-am war in 1840s where it was often said “GREEN GO!” (the american army wore green).. it took an argentine to explain.
Always wondered about "gringo"--thanks. ;-)
--D.M