Loss of Momentum
Posted: October 20th, 2005, 1:34 am
O for a wide, empty stage, in my light year out of scale, into a sun-struck myth; a wide, empty pause, only wind. I inhabit the dimension well. Every fold is mine, and I fly over each soft crease. If I move with too much desire, I could shatter a fine dimension. Momentum crosses the land, but the realm diffuses momentum. Cherished loss of momentum.
Yesterday I arrived with food, lots of it.... seven pounds of jerky and a jug of bourbon. And I arrived with momentum, generated by an attempt to outrun time using four heated tires and a dashed line. It bled through the margins of a portrait I paint, that momentum, where everything goes faster and farther and recedes into a self-generated loop. But that was yesterday. In the meantime, this beloved rock of mine spun another revolution, reckless and quiet, and it put things in a different light.
Yesterday I chased a trail across the flat, in full chalk roostertail, only to end up back where I started. That was yesterday. Today I sit on the tailgate and sip a shot of rebellion to make sure I'm awake. I emerge from the last solar dream and consider the next. I am long on perception and approximations of wonder. I behold a blinding playa and I shield my eyes. I write of its polished white marble and kings who would covet it, while unspecified gods argue atop a mound of dissolved tan on the lesser horizon, perched over the marble. Pay no mind, I conclude.
I rest on a rattlesnake porch and toast the first heatwaves. Reality and imagination cross a broken floorboard and pass through the same front door on their way to lunch. They come in out of the sun for awhile to hash out their differences, then retreat into the same heatwave deserts which cannot tell the difference between them.
A vehicle flows on the surface, shape-shifting, only to vanish. At least it must be moving. Its steering wheel vibrates, though there is no other evidence. It comes to rest where it started. It flows into that which never existed, like the first ships which sailed toward the edge of a flat earth ocean.
In the interval between deep-space chill, moon-less and forlorn and peaceful last night, and the certainty of the coming heat, lies the realm. I viewed it with ease, soon after waking; gentle, fuzzed lines, elegant as a song, though shaded with the darkness I passed through. The air was crisp as arid truth and just as deceptive. The fuzzed lines melted, yielded to light.
I know that light, how it propels me. I know its incendiary power, yet I repeat the same lie after each attempt. No more will I roam. I pushed on through, traveled to exhaustion, to glimpse the far side of my best illusion, beyond my anointed end of the earth. The myth will sustain me in the coming days, much colder. The sun energized me, and I cursed that needless war. That was yesterday. Today I am tied to this dust, if it ever existed.
Kingdoms rise up out of noontime glow and I hear their cases, one by one. They all amount to excess verbiage, though I can't be sure, since I've been stationary for some time now. I see ribbons and ruts going off into greater blankness, the etchings which started the whole trouble to begin with. But they no longer hold such sway. The space before me is brilliant. I can see that much. But the mind still requests an essay. It is still early.
(edited for typos, etc.)
Yesterday I arrived with food, lots of it.... seven pounds of jerky and a jug of bourbon. And I arrived with momentum, generated by an attempt to outrun time using four heated tires and a dashed line. It bled through the margins of a portrait I paint, that momentum, where everything goes faster and farther and recedes into a self-generated loop. But that was yesterday. In the meantime, this beloved rock of mine spun another revolution, reckless and quiet, and it put things in a different light.
Yesterday I chased a trail across the flat, in full chalk roostertail, only to end up back where I started. That was yesterday. Today I sit on the tailgate and sip a shot of rebellion to make sure I'm awake. I emerge from the last solar dream and consider the next. I am long on perception and approximations of wonder. I behold a blinding playa and I shield my eyes. I write of its polished white marble and kings who would covet it, while unspecified gods argue atop a mound of dissolved tan on the lesser horizon, perched over the marble. Pay no mind, I conclude.
I rest on a rattlesnake porch and toast the first heatwaves. Reality and imagination cross a broken floorboard and pass through the same front door on their way to lunch. They come in out of the sun for awhile to hash out their differences, then retreat into the same heatwave deserts which cannot tell the difference between them.
A vehicle flows on the surface, shape-shifting, only to vanish. At least it must be moving. Its steering wheel vibrates, though there is no other evidence. It comes to rest where it started. It flows into that which never existed, like the first ships which sailed toward the edge of a flat earth ocean.
In the interval between deep-space chill, moon-less and forlorn and peaceful last night, and the certainty of the coming heat, lies the realm. I viewed it with ease, soon after waking; gentle, fuzzed lines, elegant as a song, though shaded with the darkness I passed through. The air was crisp as arid truth and just as deceptive. The fuzzed lines melted, yielded to light.
I know that light, how it propels me. I know its incendiary power, yet I repeat the same lie after each attempt. No more will I roam. I pushed on through, traveled to exhaustion, to glimpse the far side of my best illusion, beyond my anointed end of the earth. The myth will sustain me in the coming days, much colder. The sun energized me, and I cursed that needless war. That was yesterday. Today I am tied to this dust, if it ever existed.
Kingdoms rise up out of noontime glow and I hear their cases, one by one. They all amount to excess verbiage, though I can't be sure, since I've been stationary for some time now. I see ribbons and ruts going off into greater blankness, the etchings which started the whole trouble to begin with. But they no longer hold such sway. The space before me is brilliant. I can see that much. But the mind still requests an essay. It is still early.
(edited for typos, etc.)
