The shimmering quake of sky light pushes tender needles through the bones and stomach nerves on a sunny day in Central Time Land there by the small sea of bloodied turquoise — no sand, no pails, no twisted ankles, just twisted eyes with bottles of wine tears soaking the pockets of my outdated plaid, flannel shirt.
And I sit and lay still for peace by the shore, then looking behind and up at the small rowboats stacked like bodies at the rim of the bend in the earth. No sailors to sail, no fisherman to fish, no princely addicts to drown in the sun-bleached water so cold and choking… But it’s real peace on a Sunday afternoon of solitude on planet Broke Down Burial Ground, the brown-skinned mummies stirring in the dirt below bellowing about their wild days long ago under the same sun, a hot, yellow white puncture wound throbbing in the mad, blissful sky.
I exhale the soul and shivers down deep inside, think about the miles I climbed, rattling guns shouting from the treetops some place far away. It’s all about diligence and smacking down the suffering on Sea Street by the sea, hopped up on lamp post light, back propped against, head bowed, dark raincoat swatting back the wet chill of England as a precarious carriage rolls by… Where did I leave that damn time machine?
Wander to the Public House for some light of day and wicked sips and ash flicks and bawdy talk with raucous strangers from another planet who keep flipping out about my modern-day garb and the necklaces of Atlantic shells strung about my thick neck and they keep asking me over and over and over again… “Where do you come from? Why, I’ve never heard of that place.”
It’s the tick tock time and time again and I am back on the shore by the Wooldridge Sea throwing bricks at invisible people who keep trampling across my checkered picnic blanket and knocking over my tea and rum and gun. The ribs ache and I do not want the day to end despite the fact the mummies have me in the sights of their bows — high up in the canopy of green doily — a 1952 living room chair made of trees — “Do not get dark, please,” is something like what I say, digging into some pharmaceutical picnic basket, biting in, swallowing down, feeling something illegal scraping at my ribcage, the alarm clock goes wild and I smash it with a hammer then feel bad as I look at the mangled face and I just let the thing die right there in the grass, right in front of me and time stops simply because I was a brute. Standing, thinking, looking out at the shimmer of the sea, thinking and thinking some more, this mind always running so mechanical… “What about this? What about that?
It’s a long way back to the machine, I tenderly bemoan the hike, but what better way to be on a Sunday in the English countryside of American voodoo land? Gather some things, but I do not want to look away from the sedative sky and its hammock light. Sigh, then step, then step again, and then I am away, yet turning to look back, turning for another dose of real heart, real place, feeling the guts turn tidal wave as I reluctantly walk back to the lands of the unreal reality. I do not like it, as I turn the key, and these chains do not do me justice, this being tethered does not suit me, I want to be away, always, shimmering on some lonesome road, all destinations unknown, all destinations surprise and magic.
CEREAL AFTER SEX 