It had rained. Not a drenching kind, but an insistent drizzle of grey which slightly obscured Vancouver’s skyline. For a few minutes snow fell. By day’s end it had melted and the temperature hovered around zero Celsius. The night ahead would be cold and clear, probably without frost. Quite usual weather for mid-winter on the south-west coast of British Columbia, Canada. I thought.
There was a bad thunderstorm in my area and the light, heat and, most important of all, internet connection were down at my house. That meant no computer! What was I going to do without it? What could you do if you didn’t have a computer? Don’t panic, I thought. I don’t need it: I can entertain myself. I’ve done that before, like the time my van broke down and after calling a tow company, became fixated on the tiny floater in my left eyeball. Sometimes, it lurked on the periphery of my vision, but when I tried to focus on it, it scurried away. Are you afraid, squiggly line? Why only when I ignore you do you return to blur my vision? It’s all right, squiggly line. Don’t be shy. I was about to suggest that we become friends when the tow truck arrived.
Throughout the night the power outage continued. Sleeping proved difficult and my dreams disturbed. Visions filled my brain and the wildest things I believed to be real. Being a healthy heterosexual man, I was delighted when the Hungarian-born Italian porn starlet, politician, and pop singer Ilona Staller, known by her professional name, La Cicciolina, popped into my head, with her straight peroxide-blonde hair, thick charcoal eyebrows, red-lipsticked smile, beautifully bare breasts and full bush of dark pubic hair. Yet something was wrong. It was only a feeling that I could never have explained but, as matter-of-factly about her nudity as the woman appeared, she seemed uneasy somehow and, in my endless quest for the secret of the opposite sex, I wanted to find out more about her. Just as I was about to introduce myself, I suddenly awoke, not knowing the reason why. Was it the smell something in the air? I cocked my head, sniffing. There it was again… Rotten eggs? Gas? Nervous, I opened my bedroom window and went to the kitchen. Sniffed again. Nothing. Still spooked, I checked the living room, then ventured into the kitchen, even looked out the bathroom window to the backyard. Nothing. There was nothing unusual about the house except for the pitch black dark. All this took me less than fifteen minutes and when I returned to my reveries, found much to my dismay that although I still retained some faint memory of my erotic vision, most of it had vanished like images on the surface of a pool of water that once stirred would never be seen again.
Without the power to evoke the remembrance of times past acting as a catalyst, no amber light and languid air would inhabit the atmosphere of our personal dreams. As if in a self-induced trance we are swept along by the tempest-tossed Never-Never-Land of human everyday activities, where sunlight gleams from our rusting body armour and tarnishes the reflections of our most cherished memories, casting shadows from our rusting weapons that wax and wane in the darkness of our minds. In an ivory tower, brooding over the present, regretting the past, fearing the future, we await something, because we don’t know how make it happen ourselves. Once, we were the heroes that fought bravely on the windy shores of Troy. Now, the survivors being much older and a little wiser, we gaze long and steady across the still sea, each of us like Homer’s Odysseus, contemplating our next challenge, regaining home and the well deserved peace of a dreamless sleep.
X said, “You’ve had dinner, I suppose?” “Ages ago,” Y said, “Haven’t you?” “Certainly. Of course!” It was time for dinner and Y hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Neither had X. Y did not know that X was hungry, but X knew that Y was hungry, and Y knew that X knew it. Nevertheless, each knew the reason for pretending not to be hungry. They never had meals together. Y would not let X buy his meals for him and for himself he could not afford to eat at restaurants, not even a Denny’s or an ABC. He might afford something at a fast-food place, but not a proper meal. When Y and X met it was understood that they should do nothing that involved spending money, beyond the price of a coffee. In this way these two gentlemen could keep up the pretence that there was no serious difference in their incomes.
While eating a bowl of cereal and looking at Snap™, Crackle™ and Pop™ on the Kellogg’s® Rice Krispies® box, I heard the wind playing an Aeolian harp. All round the morning air did that languorous music swoon. And it freed my imagination, so the steady stream of traffic that passed outside my window sounded like the gentle lap of waves against a sandy beach. In that pleasant drowsiness, I lost my desire to do anything but live in idleness. What did the Lotus-Eater care of clouds on the horizon when dusky, sarong-wearing maidens appear, with their arms full of my favorite flower? They bring them to me, as a gift from the sun and the moon. But wait! I could have none of that. There were too many things that needed being done on this first day of the new year: I jumped to my feet so abruptly that milk sloshed out of the bowl onto me.
Oh, how the sirens’ tempted me with their songs that day! Their voices were so soft, so sweet, so reassuring. I would be vacuuming the house and they would sing to me of exotic adventures in foreign lands; or I get water in my ear while having a shower and hear the sound of the ocean. It was spooky, as though I was listening to music from the beyond. With eyes wide open, I could see blue-flowered water lilies cling to each other in yearning, a pink-flowered lily tremble in a breeze, a yellow-flowered lily bent on its stalk. At wit’s end, I resorted to a little moving meditation outdoors: raking leaves, cleaning gutters, poking the rotting cabbages. Normally that was foolproof; the fresh air, the smells, the colours, the antics of the birds and squirrels would get me out of myself and I would feel better about returning to the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
The Lady explained the case for people who were not satisfied with their everyday lives. “Returning home at evening, they enter their studies. At the door they leave their daily cares, covered with grime and dust and take on dreams regal and courtly. Recharged, they enter the pages of history where the ancients receive them with affection. They feast on that food which only is theirs and for which they were born, where others are not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer them; and for a few hours of time these people do not feel boredom. They forget every trouble, they do not dread poverty, they are not frightened by death, because they give themselve entirely over to the task. And since Benjamin Franklin tells us to get involved if we want to learn, I have made notes of what has impressed me about the virtue of study and have written something on my own views of the subject, where I discuss what study is, of what kinds they are, how they are taught, how they are learned, how they are remembered.”
The Lady’s two devoted brothers had their own views on the subject:
Her younger brother was worried about her safety in public. “She’s an open target for some kind of assault. You may as well hang hundred dollar bills around her neck in front of an all-night 7/11 store. With that spaced-out attitude of hers, it’s bound to happen.” He was referring to the fact that his sister was only thirteen years old and hadn’t the time to get into trouble yet.
Her older brother held an entirely different opinion. “You worry too much, bro. Nobody’s going to hurt her. She’s fine. Just special, that’s all.”
Distant sun, brightest star of our galaxy, shine your benevolent light on on all your planets, your light which has no substance, yet heat that energizes, making its pure physics felt across the vast expanse of the universe, bonding sky to space, its aerial grace held suspended until night’s cold shadows are vanquished anew by day’s warm rays. No rival has our Earth’s sun, but calm and serene in the high heavens, its steamy clouds bathe all that await nourishment below with their potent breath.
Hovering above the Earth’s climes, rain is diffused from lofty peaks to rest on the fertile fields and grail-like lakes below, the arched pageant wheel of the rainbow’s spectral trail illuminates a world dissolved into fugitive hues, mists of shimmering white, gleams of yellow, belts of gradated coral, air streams of florescent pink and fiery reds that wrap into bands at the horizon and pour into the merging oceans, as they run to land with the tides, filling bays and estuaries with windblown seeds that spin on the surface in a slow, lazy gyre.
Spirit of all that exists, there can be any finer interest, than to look upon these seeds and wonder which grain will grow and which will not, whose mortal strength will bring light to the world and restore lost Eden from Chaos. Imagine an environment fit for the habitation, which, so short a time before was bleak and frozen. What was desert and barren now bloomed with splendid greenery. Birds sing and leaves bud forth on trees. This Earth, this is the soil, this is the climate of paradise. How radiant with life and health!
Existing in a hallowed state of perpetual springtime, a paradisiacal garden tended by our ancestors, the human spirit was elevated by the enchanting appearance of nature, the harsh past a memory, the present now tranquil, with the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipation of joy. People who before the climate change had lived in caves moved outside and were engaged in various arts of cultivation. By the gift of living things, they fed themselves on the bounty of produce, grains, fruits and herbs.
Human history began on one of those ancient days, yet the memory of things past is as fresh today as the first hours of those primeval mornings, all sparkling bright with dew in the steaming air. Never did world shine so beautifully than over silent valleys, lakes and streams. Never seen or felt so deeply, than when displayed under canopied bower’s perfume-scented arcades, with watery streams of silver tying ribbon glades of light and dark green floral lace together and all laid resplendent over Earth’s sun-warmed face.
How significant then, when a family rested from their labours: the mother and father, a simple pair, who discovered with great delight that one does not love one’s children just because they are one’s offspring, but because of the friendships made while raising them. While they piped and sang songs of glee together, the father noticed that his son was quiet and sighed regularly. And he knew why the boy was melancholy.
Earlier that day, they had been tending their flock who felt very sorry for themselves in the rain. With their fleeces sopping wet, the sheep huddled on the leeward side of the slope, too dispirited to graze. Even the lambs were subdued, hiding beneath their mothers. Father heard the bleating of a sheep in distress, and went to the edge of a cliff and looked over. The animal lay on its side halfway down, balancing on the steep bank, one foreleg twisted at an awkward angle. He went down to it and examined the leg. “Mutton tonight,” he called to his son.
Then the boy watched him use his knife to put the sheep, which had been called Sarah from its birth, out of her misery. Father knew that caused his son to think about contrary truths, the innocent faith of childhood and the facts of suffering and death that an adult must learn, so when the boy saw the rain clouds had cleared to reveal a spectacular rainbow in a blue sky, he accepted the responsibilities of gaining experience and knowledge as if gazing upon such beauty was his reward for being a man in this vale of tears.
The summer of 1967 has been called the “Summer of Love.” American artists from San Francisco attended Italy’s famous Spoleto Festival and introduced to Europe the “hippie” lifestyle. Young men and women went around barefoot with flowers in their hair amid an air heavy with incense and marijuana while Alan Ginsberg, Gregory Corso and Andrei Voznesensky read their non-violent dissent, anti-Vietnam war poems together at the Teatro Melisso in front of 7,000 people. Lawrence Ferlinghetti also read a poem from his book ‘To Fuck To Love Again,’ which was a celebration of ‘love of’ anarchy.
“Even fast exploding stars bizarre flickering, roving rebels even here in the scheme of some perfect utopia fast ripping through the cobweb of silver, as in the palm of your hand the perfect blueprint of the life line of the heart and the head suddenly crossed by a cataclysmic tear, not lost yet non tutte separate all the darkness still held together in some downtown property even now in the dawn, while most incendiary yet another rebel who burns intensely rubs his match on our night… ”
Recognized as one of the most important poets of the Beat movement, Ferlinghetti’s poetry is about simple and everyday things with a style of writing which seems effortless, its energy flowing like music, with colourful and romantic images that inspire all the senses. In his best work, he harkens back by the great art traditions of Europe and pays homage to Baudelaire, Picasso, Stravinsky, recalling their atmosphere and creating a place for the masters of the past in the modern world.
Ferlinghetti’s reverence for the history of art is evident when he recalled a personal highlight of the festival in his 1968 prose piece ‘Pound at Spoleto:’ I walked into the loge of the Teatro Melisso, the lovely Renaissance salle, where the poetry readings and the chamber concerts were held every day of the Spoleto Festival, and suddenly saw Ezra Pound for the first time, still as a mandarin statue in a box in a balcony at the back of the theatre, one tier up from the other stalls. It was a shock, seeing only a striking old man in a curious pose, thin and long haired, aquiline at 80, head tilted strangely to one side, lost in permanent abstraction… After three younger poets on stage, he was scheduled to read from his box, and there he sat with an old friend, who held his papers, waiting. He regarded the knuckles of his hands, moving them very little, expressionless. Only once, when everyone else in the full theatre applauded someone on stage, did he rouse himself to clap, without looking up, as if stimulated by the sound of the void… After almost an hour, his turn came. Or after a life… Everyone in the hall rose, turned and looked back up at Pound in his booth, applauding. The applause was prolonged and he tried to rise from his armchair. A microphone was partly in the way. He grasped the arms of the chair with his bony hands and tried to rise. He could not and he tried again and could not. His old friend did not try and help him. Finally she put a poem in his hand, and after at least a minute his voice came out, inaudible. A young Italian man pulled up the mic very close to his face and held it there and the voice came over, frail but stubborn, higher than I had expected, a thin, soft monotone.
“What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage. What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee…”
The hall had gone silent at a stroke. The voice knocked me down, so soft, so thin, so frail, so stubborn still. I put my head on my arms on the velvet sill of the box. I was surprised to see a single tear drop on my knee. The thin, indomitable voice went on.
“The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man-made courage, or made order, or made grace. Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down…”
I went blind from the box, through the back door, into the empty corridor of the theatre where people sat turned to him, went down and out, into the sunlight, weeping, “Come to this, come to this…”
Up above the town
by the ancient aqueduct
the chestnut trees
were still in bloom
Mute birds
flew in the valley
far below
The sun shone
on the chestnut trees
and the leaves
turned in the sun
and turned and turned and turned
And would continue turning
His voice
went on
and on
through the leaves…
Hello everyone and welcome to the dark ages, an irrational world bedevilled by its own vices and virtues, plagued by cunning, overwhelmed by violence, drowned in blood and culminating in the twilight of the gods, as both Wisdom and Folly, set afire by planet Pluto admiring its own reflection in bright and shiny Mercury, go up in flames in an orgy of self-willed annihilation, a fate that has always sadly fascinated the human mind and fulfilled some sad yearning in the human soul. It is a period of time so much like the present period of time that the similarities are remarkable, from a political and economic system, with an elite minority ruling over the masses, to genocide and wanton acts of destruction never surpassed in the long, lamentable history of human crime. The strong do as they can and the weak suffer what they must. That is the nature of the beast: plenty and poverty bound together and feeding off each other to maximize chaos. A pull here, a push there, and Mars the Avenger will reign supreme. Pessimism is the philosophy of the age: people have learned from experience that the worst, even the unimaginable would happen. Some believe they are the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. Others await what they call the “end times,” though the Apocalypse is just one of many concepts of where our evolution may lead. Will our successors, a thousand years from now, look back on us with the same pity with which we regard our ancestors? People today believe we know the answers to questions they couldn’t even ask, forgetting that those who lived in the past are the ghosts of ourselves. What events does the next Millennium hold for the human race? Will we realize, for better or worse, that the motives of human nature don’t change and what happened is still happening and will continue to happen to us, from the beginning to the end of our time on Earth?
Today, August 22, 1986, at 9:32 a.m. the mood, like the weather in the Catalonia region of Spain, was bright and sunny. Traveling companion, we have already been on a caravan of ivory, parcels of hides, baskets of coffee, gold in rings and ingots, incense and musk of civet. Although it was exciting, you excited me more. You had lifted your veil and saw the whole of life afresh, telling me it was beckoning us both. Twenty-nine, looking chic in French designer clothing, Brigitte Bardot hair, Catherine Deneuve make-up and whiling away the time with a vast tribe of indigo-skinned people, animals and insects, who, always coming or going, always seeking shelter or food, let you be your real self. That is, you told me, the strength you derive from your travels to faraway lands.
A mirage appeared in the distance, a shimmering vision of towers, some straight, some arched, some cutting across the others at oblique angles and all taking root in the crystal sky. It was the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, entered only by the imagination of architect Antonio Gaudi and his inspiration: the Collserola chain of mountains surrounding the city of Barcelona. This was our last day in Spain and you didn’t want to leave, wanted to go on to Madrid. I wanted to talk to you about that before we left, but I sat beside you, saying nothing, just enjoying being in your presence and the mild breeze coming in from the Mediterranean Sea through the open hotel window.
Madrone tree branches on the hillside trembled in the wind, pale dew dripped from leaf to leaf, double-flowered blue Dahlias and star-rayed pink Asters in the flower box behind you, brightened with their violet-hued shadows circling in the sun. You were wearing the sky-blue mini-skirt that I liked so much, your bare legs stretched out in front on the couch, your henna red hair backcombed and hair sprayed into a bouffant. You were reading an article about Tasha Tudor in Revista D&D. Your breasts, normally quite small, had swollen lately. I felt an urge to touch them and thought: Why not? So I slid my right hand inside your blouse and touched your left nipple. You smiled at me and said: “What?”
I moved my hand to your stomach and felt the slight swelling there. “I didn’t say anything.”
A cute little frown line appeared between your eyebrows, then you went on with your reading.
I lovingly kissed your forehead, aware that we had a long road to travel together. The journey might be difficult and not without risks. Through brave new worlds, which combine extraordinary adventures with many days that resemble one another, yet each bearing in them the seed of a romantic dream. Our dreams were rooted in the minutiae of every day life; in their mystic way, our individual lives will seem to evaporate, to vanish into the mutual world we have created. This experience will be at once, both beautiful and frightening, as if we have emptied the space between us in order to let ourselves inhabit it. Let us die challenging these unknown things, then be buried in the same grave, ribs to ribs, heart to heart with each other forever.
larryosland 