kobenhavn blues by smd

c h r o n o - l o g i c   w h e e l

b y   A n d r e w   L o v a t t



he crept along the walls, his pointed shadow forging ahead of his carcass body, sweating not with effort but with that chrono-logic fear. he was being dragged by his shadow really, out of the slumber of his dreamtime along the wall with the high stone brickments and turrets, towering over and threatening with their concreteness. his nebulous soft self sliding with one terrorized open eye, slinking like a snake on mescalin between the inner turmoil and the outer threat. somewhere high over his shoulder the guard waited and watched for error, casting the wide beam of ultimate spotlight upon his sorryness, waiting to bring down his long pointed rifle with the fixed bayonet and aim through the sights for the kill shot. so he crept along the walls, knowing that he had no right to exist, being pursued by the beam of light, chasing his shadow in the hopes of disappearing within its featureless sanctuary.

and time was like this; a creature chased along the crevice of a formidable wall like a snake or rat or rodent of some sort, a lesser class of being than the lithic permanence of solidity personified by this other reality. he carried in him the sideways para-noia of the dispossessed, the unwanted, uncertain in-divided person; teeth chattering and mad eye peeking, always focusing on the time of the shadow ahead, hurling forward into the tick tock, trying to gain momentum to escape the guard, the judge and jury with the steel bayonet aimed at his back. unable to turn and confront this tyranny and incapable of catching the wave beyond the shadow, which he was sure is where freedom awaited. a rat in the trap of before and after, played out like a mock triumphal march, a binary dance of neverending pitiless torture; running from the uncertainty of his right to exist along stone walls whose very presence jeered his insubstantiality and threw him further into quest-ioning.

the gates of jericho were like this; came falling down through a trumpet blast from some other corner of his unknownness, as if a third eyed person had copped the game and decided to call end of playtime. drop the walls, put out the light by blasting sunshine and a C sharp screech, til he was left unable to see anything but the rising battle dust and the end of all sliding selves. no more walls and lithic crevices to slide along; no more night guard with the terrifying spotlight. for a moment stood bare and naked, feet stopped and tingling in the dust, nostrils drawing long draughts of air. nowhere to hide from himself.

and these micro creatures in the risen sun dust; these little particles, worlds within themselves, entered his nose and brain and chest and heart and blew his logic apart so memorized patterns of avoidance were useless in the face of the new realness. even if this too will pass, as it must, it was for him like waking from a nightmare, exhausted and yet refreshed.

the wind blew through him and the sky ate him too. the air bubbled in his bones and announced its everpresentness and subtle omnipotence. crawl the wall or be the wind. give oneself willingly to the mercurial transport of wind, air and space; to the great inbetween. standing still there, for a moment, the mocking concreteness was clearly only one element in a world of other qualities and perceptions, other spaces within himself waiting to be visited. the seeming concrete a monotheistic tyrant, a paper tiger, an illusion like all other realities…


[17.xii.03, newbridge : tbc]