Floating in the Sea of Tranquillity

An extract of writing composed between 1991 and 1997.

80.

  There was no doubt that something was amiss aboard the navy airship. In order to prove the loss beyond all doubt the search was discontinued. Under writers to search over fourteen thousand square kilometers of sea. Gone on February ten, nineteen ten. After three months another search was conducted. Lack of necessary qualifications, suspicion of articles, hinterland institutions, from the man in question, empirical study narrowly confined, rounding up natives of the class system, commuting distance. One glance at the table. Stranded somewhere in the richer pastures. Reviews and obituaries. New comer to the field, steady stream of habits, drinking, gambling. Two entities confronting one another are in scope. Tragic romance. Tragedy of star-crossed lovers, something to be desired, gladiator instincts. Old timers may be thirty years into the future, rogue’s march, outlaw head, milk brands at breakfast, empire publishing newspaper museum, scandals, holidays, with a wink. Bell tower on Niagara falls, the terrible capes, some people are born with a predominant instinct, an island of tribalism in a sea of commercial ethic, lead by the hand the child can safely watch the skies.

  Fantasy static, tangled hair, breaks sleep, wild flowers, red cracks, charm, sought forces, drawn, the lights went off, forgotten, despised, esteemed, down the frantic mountains, a broken pillar, pests become rare species, you take it back, three times three, I won’t be there, a painted woman, a blue chair, tiny thread of sap, the dark instrumental, it takes away, you lose your grip. My hand still holds the letter that you sent. I will not fail. When I was nine.

   Her fingers moved the latch each slow dusk. The messengers in a time to come forgotten seated in rows at the machines, out of an empty mansion, the sky North and South, slot machines, gasoline. We sheltered in the barn for the night and watched the swallows depart when they woke us at dawn. The humans decide, unsure of a where a thought might lead them. Zigzag raven intolerable, TV names, the next war, wild cats pad, gazing at the quiet, in the park, chipped profile, an icy pond, pole tops, ripped maps, few weeds. Nobody seemed very hungry, they stored him safe as water, they talked about an unexplained explosion in Siberia in nineteen seventeen on the television news.       

   Butter, malice, desire, people in the graveyard. She moved the latch just a little. Shrinking from beneath his arms, resting on the banister with a daunting look, she was starting down looking over her shoulder at some fear, where’s my hat? Don’t go to someone else this time. The petrified tree, we draw its breath, at the edge of sleep, mortgage corporations. The two travelers fell asleep once again behind a train, you must be exhausted, drink this down, I was going to buy a knife. Unpredictable nether world anonymous telephone call, omnipresent distribution, hedge by the play ground rejuvenated.

    Let me tell you, there comes a time, for five cents, hush, cusp, husks, then you see he found the book. A photograph of the backs of the clouds. I must admit, I’ve been holding out on you. Karaoke competitions, tidal wave, marinated carcasses unnaturally golden turning on the shop window rotisseries in the arcade, the fire drawn from within, troubled by the memory of past caresses, seas three to five meters, he developed a newspaper publishing empire the ultimate monument to his attempt, manifested in his art collection, sports cars, palaces, compacts, combs, gargantuan dinner parties, impromptu all night talk sessions with the reporters from the local high school’s student newspaper, teaching them to smoke cigars. Into the fire a fancy model Turkish bath. The drinking party was asked to leave. A wooden roll top desk, sharks, eels, abalone, starfish, rays, otters, seals, sea lions and sword fish, grassy prairies.

    Synopsis composer, vanishing, separate, off camera, shoved him onto the mortal road, the first to turn her back, laughing quiet. She had seen the truth, performing in her debut, in the book before dying. Difficult positions in the beach house/studio. The vessel berths three to four hundred. World waiting, we don’t know what to celebrate. In the center ring, killed the tribe, the wonderful grey horse. He cannot see or experience it directly, she took a doubtful step, unknown boat rib. Missed his chin, take my hand, it was then something bright came into my eyes, when you meet you will hold each others hands, life is experienced as separation. He wants to get ahead, they want to lay down, unwilling to probe the sources or consequences of despair. Honesty is never sufficient, in that gesture a mere acquaintance. It was as unnatural as a can of coffee, unusual psychic condition, unnaturalness of the environment, the hearing of words, it is the present age, instruments to get into people’s dreams. That we’re not doing, in the country, it’s not good enough, opinions are worthy, free yourself, historic message, bliss energies, art masks creative exploration of self. A good comedy idea that doesn’t quite materialise.

    A married couple wind up in each others arms. His discovery takes him quickly from the laboratory to the cricket pitch where he becomes a great hat-trick bowler. A robbery and multiple double-crosses follow. Man facing ruin who’s had a hard time of it all his life is sent help in the guise of a motorist break down, ozone. They are imprisoned along with a geologist in the hide out cave of a demented scientist. If it is alive kill it or at least bury it somewhere. The son of an immigrant falls in love with the daughter of a petty criminal who has engineered himself into a position of complete control over the prison he’s been placed in. Mistaken identity and its effects. Innocent dupe joins in on a bullion robbery, he is caught and sent to prison, the gang terrorise him when he is released. A reporter is sent on a special assignment to see if he can qualify as a crack agent for the government intelligence bureau. A model rents out a billboard overlooking a busy section of the highway, and in the end counts the billions. Reporter, tomorrow’s newspaper, strange little man having fits induced by his experimental potions, pathological murderer, she hires him as a chauffeur, having his own reasons, makes a cup of tea. A former shop girl gets a part in a low-budget movie and dreams of becoming a serious, recognised movie star.

   A group from a submarine come together to find a subterranean world, fouled up race relations, show place home for its self, tense, satirical confrontations, men who’ve dreamed of having numerous lives in the land of the Pharaoh, magazine photographer interviews her and she ends up in a dozen films then retires on an extended holiday where the circumstances of her fatal but mysterious tragic ending are waiting to leap upon her. Beautiful lady tells the truth. Playful girl befriends an old lady on a tram. She starts a mink farm. The solution, rewarded by a chance.

The young rich white man buys a tenement building in Uganda. There are no locks on the ‘Super Barn’ bins. A gangster with a detective following, they become friends, go to a casino and meet a country and western music star.      

   The security guard then swears to kill the owner. The girl’s in love with both of them. Sent out with a treasure to hunt for an impoverished family who have long since hit the road, leaving, as fate would have it, no forwarding address. In the Amazon the two factional gangs of construction workers were brawling over whether or not they would have garlic on their pizza. She trifled with his affections and reneged on her promise to marry him. They have come to assassinate the flower seller, her horse and a freckle-faced boy. During the festival of five days of peace he meets the niece of a wealthy industrialist, keeps the light through out. The judge was a drunken playwright in the dark days. Behind the mirror in the medicine chest, oil well fumes, helicopter marches on patrol, rivers and lakes of refuse, tanker spill, on the tip-face, microwave and videos, lounge suites, impacted, blown tyre, sudden flood, floating bales of tied hay, bleating its fin below the murky surface, submarine hub, exposed portion of coast, hugged, neon blinded.

    A square rigger cuts the brine, Alaska where it’s blubber for dinner, the blades of the windmill halted by the seaweed twine, a knitting mill, photoelectric vacuum chamber, receipt for a hair drier. Roads dividing narrowly between posts and trees. Norse sunflowers, flying helmets, clouds of mustard gas, kneeling, armed surgical shrapnel, column of residue, white, coins, forbidden frontier, fortune cookie, flaming star, flaming streets, flaming barrier. Five hundred flames on the coast, seaman, fireman, cat with monocle and antlers, terror, perilous, express, generation, heretic, belle, Sahara, needle, witness, just another face in the crowd to whom it means nothing but a wasted few seconds of their lunch break. Hollywood, exodus of the heretics. Executioner smiling a string of dirty pearls with one hundred waiting props. It is scheduled to happen at midnight. Escape into the desert, escape into the sun, on the eve of the  eternal waltz. Every girl at the event was seated in her own special chair on Red island, sheltering beneath the palms. 

   Three dark streets to follow to go home to victory. Wedding day racing in the garden. Future race hospitalised by the ricocheting magic bullet, runs one hundred minutes. A woman and her family in a pharmacy in Shanghai with a factory worker, dubbed over English commentary, heat, river, farm, a stolen aeroplane, shot in the tail, single hand working, made for TV, destination four o’clock at my heels, personal code becomes twisted after dealing with criminals for a number of years. Tokyo, sixty thousand years later. The siege is to be kept secret. An American spaceship takes off to reach the Moon filled with edible victims for the unknown blood sucker stowaway, ending with a welcoming note.

    Spooky light. Salesman spends the stormy night after his car has broken down, sheltering in the old dark house where the over sized rabbit painted the spectral horse by the carnival stand under the broken staircase. A wind of black crayon streaks. Unpleasantly thrilled in the creepy mansion where the dinner plate shapes grew larger on the walls from tiny points between slit eye lids. Convince anyone of it, supermarket etiquette, midday talk show commentator’s commercial break cigarette, the lighter will not work, golf hotel, Saturday, Winter, compact disk, domino, empty crystal vessel, secret back-room agreements, amphitheater beneath the electric glass orb, born once before. I took her body in my arms to the undertaker. She’s dead because of us, she was trying to help us and all we did was run. In some places people have the luxury of smoking food. In the known world, unexplained disasters, smiles sadly. The smoke turns blue from the light in the street behind the curtain. A treaty to rebuild the Soviet Union. The car broke down near a drive-in, seventeen miles from the old highway, no telephone, no parents, East, away, the bears, five dollars.

    The torch bearer of freedom’s blood stained fire sent out and crippled on the barren flats. Every month new ones come to town. Scientists warning, they’ve found out what the secret was. Language exaggerated any world view, reality is socially constructed, furnished by reference theory, our opinions are the nature of reality, though this use does not interest us here. Shoppers in a supermarket reach for one brand against another, industrial operations offering the same position, government and branches of industry, philosophers stone, gold and needs it quick, come to a close, social reality deception, passion of purpose as science, secret of winning, value transference, urban studies. Manifest sanity, past reshaping, selection, scientific procedures, knowledge, listening, instinct institutions, life situation, debunking motif, ploy, mobility, control systems, memory.

“One thing is sure, I don’t know.”

   Jaw bleating flames, rites of passage, the horror of death, the miracle of birth, history and desire, camouflaged lust. Neatly dressed young girl, the antlers grow back, unkempt, in the stairway the voices seemed to call from behind, there’s no way we can bring it to you, spider creeping across the wall, greed poster saturation, season of the ox, orphans now abandoned by parents who couldn’t feed them by default, in the design, a tear drop.

We are guests in the world, discovery of the serpent, magnified many times, in a nation, in nineteen sixty eight, seventy two storey insurance company building, company executives visit, impotence in corporate life, experienced in a world, they are trapped and confused, not willing to probe the sources or consequences of despair, above the street a pilot is unaware, if I favour more, hauling himself up the stairs to share, the afternoon preparing for the evening.      

   Eight thirty, you are informal, it remains a movement of the young, particularly the well advantaged young, runaways in the country of the young radicals. Handbook of modern sociology, vanishing adolescent, temporary, transparent, presentation, alienation, deviance. The house in the cliffs, a light bulb, a ladder. As he alighted the bus he wondered how much he had not questioned of his former self, departed. During these swarmings it is not necessarily violent, mobilised and then eliminated the angry mob with an electric sensor alarm to become lazy and hedonistic. High status occupations. The wicker man at the edge of the beer garden, after hours, stewed apples, billiards, value system, the nature of role, structure of the family, PhD, rock music protest ethic, labour market, college student, group identity, effects of television, educational system, counter-culture, new survey, automation, adolescence, technological change.

    Carcinogens rise above toxicity level, change direction, teenager role in the nineteen fifties look behind, work ethic, about nine o’clock, this is not inevitable, we must keep in mind, nourished, one or two generations, December eight hundred and fifty five to eight hundred and seventy, free men and free markets, guaranteed income, runaways, telephone, television, answering machines, crowds silent, moving across these meters. A loss of ease, she changed her face, raising herself, let court use scalpel, continuous television, strawberry, ever accepted, day of school lunches, voices ballad, sullen, arrogant, assault, hacked, glittering rolled mist. The first bird, brightness dimmed, always it woke him, spring rapidly whispering, dark prevailing and nobody listening. I remembered turning in the wind. He owned it all. I knew it by the dumb look.

    Into the sun once he awoke, touch it gently, unsown, it woke him, always, still warm, banner, defeat, jowl, cheek, metal jaws, clotted. I remembered the cry of the traffic with their garlands and hoods, lessening slowly from the city and into the suburban cosmos, then lost and broken away. Bread crust, cedar blackbird, sound blowing, the people not saying anything into them forever. Straw, nothingness, childhood. Fountains flaming, drink fire, blame natives through over work, each bus ticket, prophets suffering the slave’s dream, radio talk back, slaves in the cupboard, kitchen, under floor boards. Mad century rang. Pillar of family secrets. Reason, once, before those stones. In the left hand side, decorated mound, marble, upside down. The next day’s veins, washed to demonstrate its suppleness, despite the stillness here, waste, upland, ghost, ankle, record, harvest empty, rocks, forgotten body, grazing scorpion, bacon sparrow, bikini duck steak, engines in the battle for the asphalt constellation. Diving board, fire, serious recovery, shapes. Fire doomed angry focus impossible telephone liberty vain serious soup factory confusion bait random dray horse to seek universe flesh rubber dialect plume attrition diamond crystal.