Stumbling out into a tenacious tenebrousness that hangs on to me, delaying the luxurious lux of soon-sunrise. Now, I stand still, the axis around which the bottle-propelled world spins. Do I stand or am I gripped? If I am grasped, the hand loosens and I am ambulatory once more. I spin off into space, the gravitation of my mortal coil keeping the city spinning around me. Neon, then, knees on - the ground. I expel the distilled potato-poison, acid-amalgamated. I keep returning in early evening to what I know I will later leave in the street, after I’ve extracted sufficient oblivion.
Dark still, before the dawn that platitude-prophets for profit assure me is assured. I stand up again. Stillness. Do I stand or am I gripped?
A luminous icon, a Madonna in Calvin Klein, shines above my head, as underwater. She holds no child. I hear speaking, figures passing by, a canticle in Cantonese. I don’t know what they say, but I know it would help me if I did. I am looking for a word, for a meaning. Perhaps their Sino-song would guide me to where I don’t know I am going. Without a map, I travel without travail, slavishly to the Slavic “little water”. Were my ends so clear as the perspicuous call of the liquid obscurity exported z Polski.
Sponsor says I am stuck in step one. Segundo Paso passes by with the passers-by, touring troubadours of Orient, disorienting my heart within me.
Day is coming. I pray against prayer that some Son will dawn in me. Momma was Lutheran. Twelve rungs on the ladder to freedom, “who will deliver me from this body of death?” I cannot reach the second stage.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances…
What am I playing at? The drunk in Cohen’s midnight choir. I wish I was the bird. Have I tried to be free? In my way, only. Not the Way, the Truth, the Life. Didn’t I say the Incantation of Billy Graham? Lord, save!
Eleven more steps, will I make it?
Does my Father in Heaven work late like my dad always did? I have heard the words, but never met the Word. The spirits I have known, but not the Spirit. The waters break through the firmament of my eyes. Rain now, and tears. A flow unlike the living waters. Wilt thou part the sea for me?
I rummage for the phone in my pocket. I want to come home, but there is no one to call to retrieve me. Relieve me, please.
The remnant of an ancient tree, adorned with wrought iron holds, guarding the sanctuary. Light on the horizon. No, light from behind the door. A monkish man peaks out his head. Will this man of Assisi assist me? “Come in, friend,” he calls. “You’ll catch a cold.”
I am cold, indeed. I walk into the light and into the warmth. The next step I take, will it be the second?
Good stuff bro
YES! I read it yesterday and was going to comment but here it is. Great prose tricks here sir