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Storm is coming

Clouds hang low, city like a cave,
Gray and red-orange overcome blue,
Restless leaves on arching trees

Storm is coming

Hear the crickets, hear the sounds
Thunderclap! I'm living now,
Flashing light, I'm living in these clouds

Storm is coming

Sky blackens to the east, sideways rain,
There's rare power up above

Storm is coming,

Now trunks are screaming, buildings too,
Engulfed in furious, liquid skies

Storm is coming

Gale is whipping, puddles become ponds

Storm is coming

We see how small we really are now

Storm is coming
Storm is coming

A Dash of Wrath

I am demented, lamented, resented. I rise up and fill the air with my voice but I do not have to scream. My toes twirl wildly, each one splaying out from its fellows as if stabbing the night. I rip layer after layer of thick white linen cloth from my body, but there is so much that it is hard to find my own skin. I rip and I claw and the shreds fall like an autumn hijacked by winter. For every torn layer, new folds of constricting textiles materialize and cling to my body. They encompass me. They are meant to be comforting, but I resent the comfort they intend. Because they don’t really comfort at all. They conceal and they limit and they euphemize. I am consumed by the frustration of such a thing. These imposing white waves are spun in a loving light, but I know that they are only meant to muffle. My frustration turns to ire and fire rushes from my spleen and out of my mouth to lick the linen with blackening venom so potent that I burn my own skin. My spine tenses with the pain, but the cool, swirling winds make nerve endings calm.

I seek new threads as I roam the night air. I plunge into a black thundercloud, pulling its edges tight against my straining tendons and darning it with knowing fingers to accommodate my immensity. This feels right. The dark moisture is symbolic of my power, ready to gush forth at a moment’s notice. The immutable nature of water lends itself to me and clothes me in a second skin. That burst of fire was only temporary. Fire I could produce, but it is inconsistent. Water is like a Hendrix riff and a deep kiss: it produces something in me. Its strange dichotomy of permanence and fluidity appeals to me. I ride away with my cloak of icevaporwater to impose my will on the imposable.

>>>excerpt from the Autobiography of Radric Brazoban

What is that? The odd, maybe twisted pleasure of leaving people behind

There you are, on that boat. There they stand, on the dock. They stand there on the planks and nails, and the beams that bear their weight sink deep into the unmoving earth.

They stand on the dock. They are at the edge of the water. They can only turn. They can only go back. As they return back to their lives, they can’t fathom the dock; they don’t even try. They must return to the roundness, to the wholeness of the land. The concept of the frontier is too large, too unpackageable to even be addressed. The frontier doesn’t even have an address. It is beyond. Beyond what? That is the use of the people on the dock. They define the frontier. The point where they collectively stop, that is the frontier. Because some people stop on the dock, the boundary exists. That dock at the edge of the cold, dark water becomes so big. The big, scary frontier that repels them back toward the wholeness of their lives.

So why did they come? Was it to squeeze your hand or kiss your mouth with convincing passion? No, they came to see if you would really get on the boat. That Martian vessel departing the wholeness and the roundness. To where? Wrong preposition! It doesn’t matter to where. The boat is an uncatchable beam of light, tangenting off of the roundwhole. It is bouncing, flying, fleeing mothers and moorings. The shadow it casts doesn’t even touch the dock. The tethers fall away and the "bon voyages" ebb as thunderous waters make way for brave tangent.

But what of you? I haven’t forgotten. You can forget forgetting. Forgetting is what happens when you try to remember. You are past all that. You have put down your cup of Kool-aid. It wasn’t too bad: it was pleasant and safe and even tasted pretty good. Too syrupy-sweet though. It is time for a hearty swig of cold, briny seawater. Now that is a substance of clarity. It stings going down and it is complicated. It is liberating and revolting. Saltwater requires sharp focus; Kool-aid requires quiet concession. Kool-aid you left behind. You’re drinking seawater now. And after the first, hesitant cupful, you start gulping it down. There’s no label indicating its safety, but its salty sting doesn’t make you seize or vomit, no limbs fall off and your pores don’t leak essential fluids. Instead, the world flows into you. You are filled with its thereness. It shakes you and makes your eyes well up. The scrutinizing wind bites chunks out of who you were. It whips you like a lash, then fills your lungs – Straboccante! – with the food for which they yearn.

You crossed the frontier when you stepped foot on that boat. And however cold and brackish and biting the beyond is, it welcomes you.

Now go to it.