Cormorant Recessional

 

They tried not to confront each others' eyes, and wet their lips instead sipping from beer steins or sparkles of wine, all drolly dolled up in their black finery, the heavy mood in the room a kind of melancholy musk. Autumn, already a time of recession, now met with these mourners majestic with their muted, timorous voices, waiting for the booze to kick in.

Ramal texted her boo

The hardest people to love are the ones who need it the most. God knows it's hard. Sorry, just a momentary lapse into honesty, one shouldn't say these things. Pretend you didn't hear that. Like my Dad. Not really hard of hearing but not at all interesting in being baited by things he does not want to hear nor respond to. My inhibition's showing, it's October. The summer shields are down, now is a time of cooling, shrinking, ebbing, descending, darkening – of preparation for the challenges of winter.

Ramal texted her boo

Cynical as the reticent theologian, Father McKearney bumming a smoke behind the bar dumpster on this bitterly cold brink of night, the light in his hand turning to ash. An hieratic character he butt uncharacteristically he's truculent and not a little drunk, slurringly musing “perhaps if I embark on a recitation it won't torment me so,” and so he dolefully quotes some Ezekiel, “The Lord God proclaims to these bones: I am about to put breath in you” then he stumbles and bumps his knuckle, drawing a sap of blood, mumbles “wash that away” as he flings open the door for another round. The sounds inside shoot out, an emerging raucousness, less an orthodox reflection than a manifest biblical paradigm: life itself is a parable, a walk down a fabled path into the deep dark forest, and there in the night we can feel what lurks, desperate and snarling, just there in the shadows, ready to pounce.

Ramal texted her boo

History is unstable, entropic, and honestly everything is ending all the time, not just right now. Time is simply the exchange rate between Destruction and Creation, it's a bear market, and Mankind was nice but it was so last season. Call me fatalistic- but when we all lost whatever tenuous grip we had on normal routines last year we fell from the scaffolding that that daily rhythm provided. No routine meant more time to think and I've been thinking about existence—the fleetingness of time, Montaigne was preoccupied by the inadequacy of his own knowledge, but the implication is that all knowledge falls short of truth. We are mortal. We are alone.

Ramal and her boo took off together around 8:30 in his Camaro.

 I was in the process of leaving until closing, when I left, and without my phone or any cards or cash for fare I walked back to the hotel. About 5 miles waiting for the sun to grace us with it's presence. It takes a lot longer now, the sun. The nights are longer, you can feel the inexorable withdrawal of energy as our northern hemisphere retreats, by degrees into the caliginous night, smoky from so many dying fires, the stars above, each cascading off like hollow pangs into the rising tide of darkness. Life's but a slow suspension into death, exhalation part of the same process of inhalation within each breath.

My Walks

 

Been walking in the mornings, the air cool on my face

repeated mantras dance silently across my lips

syllabic placeholders utilizing the tempo of my legs

and yes I must mention the dog normally an extension of my wife's lap

tethered tightly to a taut fibre between my fingers

marching up and down the exurbs muttering my nonsense

sniffing all the sidewalks for a sense of the scents of my neighbors

Why? I ask myself

Perhaps this morning I'll find my answer

if there's meaning out there we'll find it, somewhere at the end of my leash.

An Empyrean Compendium

 “he sees the spiritual everywhere translucent”

-Ferlinghetti

Saint Edith approached each day as a search for God without expectation until she left the earth's surface, or descended under the sea, depending on who you ask.
Saint Luke stayed behind.
Saint Severin cleaved the stone, cured the king, caught on, tuned in, dropped out.

She defined Empyrean “The highest high heaven
supposed by the ancients to house the pure element of fire”
I said “you know what fire does, don't you? It burns.”
They knew. The ancients. You get to close to pleasure and it is pain. The purest square root of pain. The pain that kills saints, you can't have a saint without a martyrdom, can you?
Or does it require a miracle?

Saint Claire was worthy before God.
Saint Cuthbert lived from 634 till 687.
St Helena witnessed the death of the emperor in silence
St Bernard had it ruff.

I said “you get close to pleasure and it is pain.”
She said, of course, “a sadist wouldst frame the equation in the reverse.”
“I prefer not to solve by that route, ma'am. Johnny, show your work.

Now let us all turn to page 4 in our compendium of saints.
The centuries roll back and rise before me like a forest
Darkness tried to move. “The rhythm is gunna get you,” prays St Estefan
As a convert and a fantast one's kisses taste tart-
less like kismet than- dart that tongue- not quiet right is it?
the sudden tumult beneath the surf [and turf]
it's always you, it's always you, it's always

The less said about St Andrew the better.
The kids are losing their heads over Saint Denis.
Saint Lucy, blind and bleeding, bore a bright light in the wicked darkness.

The whole sky reels with imminent dawn.
You came in with coffee and naked perched
on the bed … your arms, your shoulders, your hair...
I felt so happy, less like sex, more like someone with nothing to pretend
“What is it you are contemplating?” she asked.

Saint John wrote 385 Songs in 13 years, a dream that buries lesser men.
Wherefore art thou means where you at, to Saint James.
“For reasons I cannot explain I'm going to Graceland.” sayeth Saint Paul but we were rueful and wet when we checked into the Hotel St Julian in the rain asking “is heaven another haunted mansion?”
There was nothing left to the city 'cept clouds, and anyway it wouldn't be the same anymore,
she said “everything is ruined,” and I shushed her and we squabbled for a long time, mainly squeezing.

Saint Cyril wore an Allfather seal as he inflamed tensions in Alexandria against the Nestorians.
Santa Monica went around behind her husband's back to “pray.”
Saint Francis reflected as the fat silent star crossed thin ice.

Upstairs, a big bearded cherub strums out of tune. Have harp, will pluck.
One looks under the beds on the way out of the room way up in the high-rise and wonders
where they hidin' that pure fire at, boy?
Gosh! Hallowed be thy... #same
Maybe love is sustained delusion. Like any delusional fan, I am in.
First we stretch our hamstrings, then we let go of our ego.

Austere St Eugendus ardently sighs, his clothes were made of sack cloth. Fear is an expression of ignorance.
Saint Anthony kept a shell in his pocket, for luck. Happiness is a winsome path lined with stones. Sharp stones.
When the curtains fall, St Peter at the gates is a fucking monster, a leviathan horror, with16 million followers on twitter.
Desire is a terrible torment. What are you even lookin' for?

San Quentin seems nice this time of year.
Saint Felipe's manifest was confiscated after setting sail from Manila.
Saint Flavian, a blonde, was repeatedly vindicated by Pope Leo, arbiter of Atila, a ginger.
When in doubt, Saint Hegesippus wrote it all down.

But none can retain their individualness. Insular for a moment we all return to the same dust. A cleaning woman ensures the rooms are spotless. Once you've learned your lesson you can take down the motivational quotes, disable the mindfulness app. Change means clean walls and zero notifications. So why do I feel so sad? With sight comes no need for vision. The ink stops flowing on the page and, backed up, blots out the night sky. Why am I falling apart? Once you've metabolized the teaching it leaves you speechless. She read over my shoulder, “Some say dumb.”

Prayer is a game without ceasing, rejoice! sayeth Saint Isaac.
Saint Theresa heard the call and held on, sleeping like a child, higher than the moon.
Saint Brendan the Coward, a strong believer in repetition, was exiled twice, and kept coming back for more.
Saint Louis came back through the white cloud to do it all again.

Last night I built a fire. She laid a rose on the embers. I thought about Vulcan, and man's thievery [of fire] from the Gods. St Lawrence, patron saint of comedians, grilled to death on a spit. I thought about the stories we tell ourselves, the ones that glow from under the secret doors in our hearts and and keep us warm at night. I thought about the story of you and me, its starts and stops elided ever by the through-line … going away.

“But it hurts” he reminded her.
She whispered “lets hurry up and go”