(Some experimental refractions. Thank you for drizzling by.)
The clattering waves. The intractable sky. Mute again, with gloomy grey eyes. A bit of bone cuts into my thumb. A touch of wind whispers through decaying feathers. I do not remember the last thing I felt before the embalming.
Sometimes, Silence is reckless.
My mind is fossilized. As lively as the oldest stone. I lean back on the retracting cushion of Entropy, and gaze blankly toward the heavens. How dazzling is this thatch of scattering sparrows; how enchanting their dance of dewdrop shadows.
Thorny bliss is this mindlessness, oblique amongst the dried thistle and snapping bramble. I can vaguely hear it, somewhere wrapped in gauze; a little Life fizzing at the bottom of the quiet stream, beyond.
Like a mosquito, I insert a needle into it, now and then.
It is easy to forget the threat of a wave’s smooth caress, that its languorous massage of oblivion is still a form of erosion.
When I was a child, my favourite thing to draw was a noose.
He rang the other night. I could hear that his lips were cracked and bleeding. He wept and begged forgiveness, but I had never felt slighted to begin with. Yet, my response was blank-eyed silence. There was only the sound of the restive wind moaning through the eaves to answer for me.
How stealthy a foe is this stifling captor; like a cashmere cloud, its downy coolness yawned over me. Its strangeness seemed safe, nestled inside its gossamer embrace, bound in a world without senses or thought. I am far too gone to feel alarm, now.
Sometimes, love is just impotent rage that is a little too tired to bear its bulbous face.
What an obdurate knot Shame so deftly creates, twisting away, as the years smoothly slip by, pressure mounting against my spine.
Regaining a pulse requires resurfacing. To drag the bloated body from the turgid depths. To pry open its chalky eyes, exposing them to the bone light of the wild ocean sky, above. To kiss its mucid, slimy visage and blow through its cold stringy-white lips.
To let the cherry rivulets of pus and water drain from the self-inflicted punctures.
I do not know if I will dry out, chafe these wrists, and feel again. I despise the sound of my own voice, the rattle and scrape of my defunct brain and the trepid rasp of my rusty breath.
Sometimes, though, Silence can be much deadlier than the noose.
“Ah! the wet surface extends its clear broth!
The water fills the prepared beds with pale bottomless gold.
The green faded dresses of girls
make willows, out of which hop unbridled birds.”
– Arthur Rimbaud, from the poemMemory”Clear water; like the salt of childhood tears”
– Arthur Rimbaud, from the poem Memory“Prairie roses, two of them, climb down the sides of a road ditch. In the clear pool they find their faces along stiff knives of grass, and cat-tails who speak and keep thoughts in beaver brown.”
– Carl Sandburg, from the poem Memoranda “A lacrymal tincture washes
The cabbage-green skies:
Under the drooling tree with tender shoots”
– Arthur Rimbaud, My Little Lovers“To-day, let me be monosyllabic….a crony of old men who wash sunlight in their fingers and enjoy slow-pacing clocks.”
– Carl Sandburg, from the poem Monosyllabic “Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.”
– Carl Sandburg
The Swamp may one day claim my body. This past weekend I was found sinking into the muck, yet again. I never mean to deviate out into those gurgling and gushing, reedy and thrillingly mucid marshlands but something always draws me in.
In this case, it was vultures…
A great cluster of black vultures descended right in the middle of the great sprawling mire below and I just had to go tumbling down after them.
They wheezed and grunted and hopped about in a frenzy as I sloshed near. Then in a great charcoal gust they fluttered up and adorned the palm trees above, their crinkled heads bent with sharp, bilge-water brown eyes studying me, looking like dark-frocked, feathered judges scowling down at me.
I sifted about looking for a corpse. To no avail. Disappointed, I continued on. I was soon slopping along in happy oblivion until the mire became a river and the reeds turned into mangrove trees; and even then I ventured further. A tiny gator slipped away and a flurry of silver bodies slapped the surface of the water as they swam away in a fast flash. Little black minnows danced in the golden, tea-stained waters bathed in warm sunset.
Suddenly I remembered that I do not live in the Swamp and that these ruddy parks always have a blasted time-limit. I turned and squished back toward the great sprawling knoll where the path was. I clambered and crawled up through an impenetrable green fog of knotted grass. A merry wind casually chucked vulture feathers, globs of yellow pollen, sticks and burrs into my wild, tangled mane as I clawed along like a blind bear.
At last I popped onto the trail, adorned in Swamp.
I was surprised when I heard a squeak pierce through the meditative hum of honey bees that I had just walked through as they danced from flower to flower at my muculent feet.
I began to concoct a haphazard smile, realizing the squeak had issued forth from a wide-eyed dog-walking lady that had been startled by my sudden appearance. I guess she had no idea someone had been crawling around in the somnolent mire below all this time. She rapidly gathered up her canine companion and shielded the small and thoroughly fascinated terrier from my ghoulish and slovenly sight. The pair darted away as I said with a stumble, becoming entangled in some gigantic weed I hadn’t noticed, “Lovely time for swamping, eh?!” She didn’t reply…I don’t think she heard me…
I immediately became distracted by the lake on the opposite side and soon found myself in the water, yet again, joyfully fiddling with the camera. Time was forgotten yet again as the sun was swiftly hoovered away and squeezed to rust. The phone deep in my pack tootled but I couldn’t be bothered with attempting to dig it out, so I continued to film as I slowly made my way back.
Then I heard a great booming cry warble across the glimmering waters glazed in purple dusk, “PARK CLOSING!”
It seemed to be coming from a tiny dancing dot on the shore across the way…where the park entrance was…
Oh dear…THE TIME!
I tried to assure the little black dot (that was an irate ranger) that I was hurrying as I called out, “I AM COMING! DON’T WORRY! BE RIGHT THERE!”
He was miles away…well, perhaps just one mile.
I wasn’t very near and the wind was probably erasing my calls, so I gesticulated wildly in order to encourage the ranger that I was hurrying. He continued to hop up and down.
Then I started splashing back as quickly as possible.
And then I crouched down in the water to film a rock.
“PARK CLOSING!!!!! PARK CLOSING RIGHT NOW!!!” came a very jarring, caterwauling cry.
I decided I should put the camera away…this was a very difficult chore as my arms suddenly weighed about 18,000 lbs.
I managed to make it back and even avoided being pounded by the red-faced, snowy-mustached ranger as he crammed me into the car and Sir rapidly peeled away (well, rapidly for a tortoise, that is, as Sir is a very sedate, I mean careful, driver- to the outraged ranger’s dismay…). I was able to obtain enough footage for a few wee videos featuring some minute creatures. Here is one below, shot at Pine Island Conservation Area in Merritt Island, FL. Thanks for drizzling by,
(Some feeble footage above of some hunting bull-shark chums of mine as they spilled up into the shallow swash as the tide began to recede. Is there anything better than having a shark swim up into one’s lap? I think not!)
I had a meeting with the Sharks that Sunrise, and they kept their promise. I arrived to the bruised sight of a brooding squall that aged the sky, scudding in and consuming the Dawn.
Pale rosy lightning sniveled across the slate blue of cloud as a lone dolphin breached cold in the distance.
And there in the swash the pastel waves frilled and shivered as a cool wind lumbered forth, and a surge of fish spat out from the sea as the Sharks surfed right up to my feet.
The Surf Fisherman decided not to wade in. I know not why. The water was glorious.
“Now she is forcing me to pose as some sort of sick Clouseau Doolittle for infamous VIDEOS of me being barraged, assaulted, beaten, bitten and viciously pecked at by a sea of rabid, wild creatures!
“‘What ART!’ the expert torturer chimes with the dead glaze of that stupid camera poking in my face.
“I certainly hope these beastly things NEVER EVER find their way onto the Internet…”
The night was humid and tangy, heady mist hovering in the air. The sky was low and moldered with deep purple cloud, reflecting in swirls the city’s incandescent glow.
I oozed along the gritty path, sweat creeping down my neck. Feral cats caterwauled and twirled ahead. I stopped to gaze at them when I noticed the black silhouette of a rabbit- a domestic rabbit- right amongst a sea of rowdy felines, ferine.
Rabbit Noir
“Are you trying to catch that rabbit, too?!” came an excited exclamation from a female voice.
I swiveled around to face a beaming woman with a crine of giant, lemon-hair outlined brilliantly in the gauzy strobe of the path-light. Her smile beamed through the darkness.
I must have had a sickly, rabbit-besotted look on my face as I stuttered, “Oh right, certainly so!”
“I’ve been trying to catch her for DAYS!” the woman boomed as her Siberian husky-dog companion stepped forward and my hand warbled gently onto the top of his silvery head.
Sir, another Rabbit-gatherer
“Well, I’ll gather her up then,” I said.
“It’s just about impossible! Oh PLEASE if you catch her will you give her to me?! I really want her!” cried the lovely blonde-haired companion to canines.
“Oh right,” I murmured, gazing into the gelid blue eyes of the great dog, his tongue lolling.
A dyspeptic sort of smile crackled across my ruddy visage, imagining a rabbit taking up residence with this fine canine…
Then came a gust, the lass bugling with a touch of doubt about her elongated words, “GOOOOOD LUUUUUCK!”, as the ashen-grey sled-hound suddenly javelined forth, hurrying the dog-owner quickly away.
I turned. A cat rolled into the stubborn rabbit who staunchly held her place, her head poised, haughty. I belched forward.
The rabbit shot into the woods at approximately 90 mph. Hum. Not like the usual wild rabbits that seem to always swarm at my feet, darting up to me in the millions, as if I cram my shamrock socks with carrots and don stylishly-leafy celery stalks behind my ears as a nice accent to my Timothy hay wig…
I wobbled after the rabbit. The air was like still water.
A lettuce-lover
In complete darkness, amidst some kind of inky-black copse of tangled bramble and twisted trees, I was compelled to kneel down for a moment to brood about how to gather up the creature. My hand found itself lightly alighting right upon the head of the long-eared creature.
“Ooofffeee!” I muttered and the rabbit dissipated.
I puttered about and decided that I could decipher just where the lagomorph would emerge, out of this great patch of weald. I swirled all the way around to the very back of the deep patch, where I knew there was a quiet spread of grass, quite secluded.
Astoundingly, my pathetic bit of rabbit psychology proved correct as I came beetling up to the creature gently grazing and barking off more rambunctious cats. One cat, I noticed, had just assembled himself into a wobbly pouncing position.
Some felines fear rabbits, like this one here
The mouse-lovers sprayed away as I appeared, but the lettuce-lover seemed shocked and merely gawped at me. I had done it. I could see it in that glazed look hovering in her wide doe-eyes. The rabbit-charm never fails. Twelve seconds later she was in my arms, purring, whiskers tickling the neck.
See, these cats are fleeing some bully bunnies in the other room
Having never held a rabbit before, I carried my new rabbit-roomie off into the darkness, to soon take up residence with some wee-woodland-creature-fearing cats and greens-flinging, hay bequeathing humans.
Needless to say, aye, the rabbit was most content.
In need of a dear ol’ chum
After some months, however, a depression overtook the cilantro-and-carrot-gobbling being. She was in need of a fellow long-eared companion, it was concluded.
I was off to the park again, this time with Sir, to muse over where to obtain this new chum for the rabbit that had strangely become known to us as Gandhi-Poe Lassie. Would there be a rabbit at the shelter, perchance? Perhaps we should check the online ads.
We were not haunting the park more than three seconds when Sir spotted a white-blazed, pink-nosed, black pet rabbit huddled against a yellow parking curb. Oh my.
Rabbit Musings
It seemed our musing was over.
He bleated to me, I got out to attend to the rabbit, and Sir sped off to go get a cage and a net from the house just down the way. Hmph. Who needs those things?
I began to radiate rabbit-charm when a human being approached from behind, yet again, and the wee woodland creature darted underneath a parked car. Oh dear.
The approacher was an octogenarian woman looking to vacate the park. Her instant assumption was that the rabbit now crouched beneath her pale Lincoln car was mine, and that I was of in the habit of stowing pet rabbits under whatever cars I liked, whenever I felt like it, regardless of consequences and who I might hurt.
Too cute to stow and leave under cars
Well, I am not one to sway about and attempting to explain things. I am one of action. I decided I would get right to work gathering up the creature.
A nervous first-meeting
I was nervous, however, and my radiating rabbit-charm was askew as the woman stamped impatient feet and huffed to the heavens about the oh so grueling oppression of the Impetuous Youth, of which she readily decided I was most assuredly a member of.
My crawling about and cooing beneath her car seemed to exacerbate her aggravation, and did nothing to entice the rabbit to scoot elsewhere. I attempted to snag, and he would shuffle out of reach every time.
Just a thought
The Lincoln-owner decided starting the car might help. The rabbit seemed to find the gentle bombilation of the engine relaxing.
At last, I decided to bellow and have convulsions underneath the car, to the automobile-owner’s audible dismay, and the rabbit slipped out of the shadows and pranced across the way in order to perch on some coquina-limestone outcroppings. Obviously, he did not find it prudent to while away the hours under cars with humans having fits.
I oozed sheepishly out from underneath the vehicle and the grey-haired woman sputtered a rapid, “THANK YOU!” at me as she speedily evacuated.
Some onlookers smiled as I wobbled over to the limestone. A grin had manifested itself on my face as I recognised the look the lagomorph was beaming at me. Yes, I knew that look- “Right-ho, pick me up, all ready to go now.”
Bunion Claude
There was a hazy film hovering in the rabbit’s auburn eyes. He was charmed. He was almost smiling as I scooped him up and hoofed it home, as at last, the heat was quelled by the commencement of a gentle, sluicing rain. The rabbit, named Bunion Claude, seemed to like the soft shower, and purred in my arms.
Timothy-hay-muncher
And so, that was how I became rabbit-roomies with the two fine foot-slapping, white-cotton-tailed creatures. They adore chasing the trembling cats, gobbling red leaf lettuce, and munching hay from my wig as I pat them contentedly on the head in a sort of rabbit-loving haze.
The clattering waves. The intractable sky. Mute again, with gloomy grey eyes. A bit of bone cuts into my thumb. A touch of wind whispers through decaying feathers. I do not remember the last thing I felt before the embalming.
Sometimes, Silence is reckless.
My mind is fossilized. As lively as the oldest stone. I lean back on the retracting cushion of Entropy, and gaze blankly toward the heavens. How dazzling is this thatch of scattering sparrows; how enchanting their dance of dewdrop shadows.
Thorny bliss is this mindlessness, oblique amongst the dried thistle and snapping bramble. I can vaguely hear it, somewhere wrapped in gauze; a little Life fizzing at the bottom of the quiet stream, beyond.
It is easy to forget the threat of a wave’s smooth caress, that its languorous massage of oblivion is still a form of erosion.
When I was a child, my favourite thing to draw was a noose.
He rang the other night. I could hear that his lips were cracked and bleeding. He wept and begged forgiveness, but I had never felt slighted to begin with. Yet, my response was blank-eyed silence. There was only the sound of the restive wind moaning through the eaves to answer for me.
How stealthy a foe is this stifling captor; like a cashmere cloud, its downy coolness yawned over me. Its strangeness seemed safe, nestled inside its gossamer embrace, bound in a world without senses or thought. I am far too gone to feel alarm, now.
Sometimes, love is just impotent rage that is a little too tired to bear its bulbous face.
What an obdurate knot Shame so deftly creates, twisting away, as the years smoothly slip by, pressure mounting against my spine.
Regaining a pulse requires resurfacing. To drag the bloated body from the turgid depths. To pry open its chalky eyes, exposing them to the bone light of the wild ocean sky, above. To kiss its mucid, slimy visage and blow through its cold stringy-white lips.
To let the cherry rivulets of pus and water drain from the self-inflicted punctures.
I do not know if I will dry out, chafe these wrists, and feel again. I despise the sound of my own voice, the rattle and scrape of my defunct brain and the trepid rasp of my rusty breath.
Sometimes, though, Silence can be much deadlier than the noose.
A Day in the Brine 