Saturday, August 29, 2009

The fish I am

In the moments before entering the marina of Port Camargue, I was trying hard to find my enthusiasm. A racing heartbeat, sweaty palms, a lump in my throat… nothing. After so many days at sea, I was hoping to finally feel something.

Actually, the only thing I do remember was anxiety. I set out on this voyage hoping to feel grief at last. To take myself to the limits of my soul & enjoy the darkest things I would find inside; & then, just before my voyage ended, I was going trough my inventory of emotions, wondering if I had accomplish my desires.

Thinking back, I had my moments, when darkness overcame, but it wasn't pitch black as one would imagine or as sweet as I expected it to be. It was short & accurate, so I guess only time will make the difference.

I think, somewhere along the way, in the past few years, I transformed from the emotional little fish I was, into a thinking wooden being, pushing away any feeling that may have hurt me; & then when I wanted to hurt a little, there was almost nothing left inside. So, I took my father's boat & set sail on an artificial-emotional journey, trying to transform myself back into that little fish. Hopefully, now I am somewhat of a hybrid – a thinking wooden fish.

2 comments:

  1. "There's a light in the wings
    Hits this system of strings
    From the side while they swing;
    See the wires, the wires, the wires

    And the articulation
    In our elbows and knees
    [makes them jerk in the breeze]
    Makes us buckle and we couple in endless increase
    As the audience admires milkymoon

    And the little white dove
    Made with love, made with love
    Made with glue and a glove and some pliers

    Swings a low sickle arc
    From its perch in the dark
    Settle down
    Settle down
    Settle down my desire

    And the moment i slept
    I was swept up in a terrible tremor
    Though no longer bereft, how i shook
    And i couldn't remember
    And then the furthermost shake
    Drove a murdering stake in
    And cleft me right down through my center
    And i shouldn't say so
    But i know that it was then or never

    Push me back into a tree
    Bind my buttons with salt
    Fill my long ears with bees
    Braying 'please, please, please,
    Oh you ought not!
    No you ought not!'

    And then this system of strings
    Tugs on the tip of my wings
    Cut from cardboard and old magazines
    Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow

    And in the place where i stood
    Is a circle of wood
    A quarter to which you chop and you stack in your barrow

    And it is terribly good
    To carry water and chop wood
    Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed

    As i crash through the rafters
    And the ropes and the pulleys trail after
    And the holiest, holiest belfry burns sky high

    And then a slow lip of fire
    Moves across the prairie with precision
    While somewhere with your pliers and glue
    You make your first incision
    And in a moment of almost unbearable vision
    Doubled over with the hunger of lions
    'Hold me close', cooed the dove
    Who was stuffed now with sawdust and diamonds

    I wanted to say 'why the long face?'
    [slowly slip away with your long face]
    Sparrow perch and play songs of long face
    Burro buck and bray songs of long face
    Sings 'i will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
    Just to lift your long face
    And though it may be madness, i will take to the grave
    Your precious long face
    & though our bones they may break & our souls separate
    Why the long face? Milkymoon
    And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
    Why the long face?'
    [it was not my mistake,
    It was not your miskate;
    There is a bell beneath the lake
    And verily the spell begins to break
    And verily the spell begins to break]

    In the trough of the waves
    Which are pawing like dogs
    Between pale-faced and grave
    As i write in my log
    And then i hear a noise from the hull
    Seven days out to sea
    And it is the damnable bell
    And it tolls, i believe, that it tolls
    It tolls for me!
    And it tolls for me!

    And though my wrists and my waist
    Seem so easy to break
    Still my dear i would have walked you to the edge of the water

    And they will recognise
    All the lines of your face
    In the face of the daughter, of the daughter, of my daughter

    And darling we will be fine
    But what was yours and mine
    Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes

    But if it's all just the same
    Then say my name, say my name,
    Say my name in the morning so that i know when the wave breaks

    I wasn't born of a whistle
    Or milked from a thistle at twilight
    No, i was all horns and thorns
    Sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
    So enough of this terror we deserve to know light
    And grow evermore lighter and lighter
    You would have seen me through
    But i could not undo that desire"

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  2. From my own personal expeirience in grief, I can tell you that this search for feelings of yours in natural but alltogether useless.

    These feelings attacks you right in the middle of nowhere, where your walls or protection are caught off-guard.

    It's not that you became a wooden being. You're still the same Yoniz, you just built a wall from this world for all kinds of reasons oyu have (Cynical society, grief, personal deamons, you name it). These walls are meant to be broken, and it takes time. Your terrible lost just enhanced these walls to climbe higher. They will collapse, don't worry. And as you desire - it won't be a pretty sight.

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