Three Strange Angels

Heaven’s Door

Anthony Haggarty brushed his teeth the way he always did that morning. Left to right. Right to left. A repetitive motion out of synch with the sound track of his life playing in the background. The whistle of morning coffee. Car engines revving, further in the back ground a bus ferrying kids to school.

Haggarty could feel sounds from point of origin, an unusual talent that served him well. As he scrapped the blade across his face he felt weary. He saw the blood pearl on his chin. It was the first time he had cut himself in years. He didn’t care. Just carried on shaving, rinsed and then splashed some Old Spice on his face. The sting of the aftershave’s alcohol was slight, still it didn't register as feeling.

As he moved into the kitchen he heard his wife droning behind him, and his children laughing. Or it could have been squabbling. He took a slice of toast from the table and slugged back some coffee. Then walked out into the same day. A day that looked like yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that.

The radio in his car crackled as it spurted out missives to people like him. People meant to be saving a world that was falling away from them. He was so tired. Fired the engine. Heard the call. Slid into the road and when he was well away from home flicked the siren on. At one time the sound of that siren would stimulate an adrenalin surge. At one time doing what he did had meaning. Now all he wanted to do was sleep.

Somewhere in the middle of the inner city slum his car screeched to a halt, and rode halfway up the pavement. He looked at the horizon, watched it slip away from him. Opened the door. Stepped out into a world he no longer belonged to.

He heard the gunman the minute he stepped out of the car. Through the commotion, above the city's screaming voice. It was then that he heard the song again. His song. He always thought of that song as his. Written by Bob Dylan. Sung by everyone else. This time the words were soft, sung in a whisper by a woman's voice. Like a lullaby. Like a love song. Like a home coming call.

“Mama, take this badge off of me // I can't use it anymore // It's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see // I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door..”

He anticipated the bullets before they came. He could even feel the sound of the trigger squeeze. The first hit him in his back, above his hip. The second in his shoulder. The third in his arm.

“Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door // Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door // Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door // Knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door.”

The last bullet hit him center chest and he went down. For a brief moment the world pulled focused. He tasted the blood in his mouth. Heard his wife telling him to take care because she loved him. And his children. Yes they were laughing. The toast was slightly burned. The dog licked his shoe as he walked out the house.

“Mama, put my guns in the ground // I can't shoot them anymore // That long black cloud is comin' down // I feel like I'm knockin' on heaven's door.”

* Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was written and originally performed by Bob Dylan for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. This story is written as a tribute to Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons.

Vanity publishing and the death of reason

Sean Hughes picked a scab from his nose. Rolled it into a little ball and then looked at it. Half blood. Half dried mucous, a touch of sweat.

“I am not even worthy of being a piece of dried phlegm in my own nose,” he thought feeling miserable. The rent was due. His stomach was grumbling. His dick was flaccid. He couldn’t write.

Hours passed and he sat looking at the blankness. Empty wall. Clean page. The virgin Moleskin book the girl once gave him. She fucked him because he had said he was a writer. A published poet. A real author.

He was a liar and he knew it. The truth? He wrote a couple of poems and a short story that had been printed in some vanity publications. The ones where you have to buy the book to get a printed copy of your poem or story. Annuals of effluence with apt titles like: “An Autumn of Literary Seasons” or “The Shorties – flash fiction from first time writers.’ When he read the crap that was published alongside his writing he blushed, gagged and wondered whether someone could actually die laughing. It would be a good way to go.

He paged through the empty Moleskin and thought about the girl. He fucked her because she was there. Because he could. So he could pour some of the hate and self loathing normally reserved for himself into her. Afterward she wanted to cuddle. He picked at a cigarette, played with a box of matches, and told her to get out. She told him he was a nihilist cunt, so he started flicking lit matches at her as she scrabbled to pick up her clothing, tears streaming down her cheek. One flaming match struck her partly naked back just before she could close the door and leave. Her back was beautiful, lean and tanned. The minute she left Hughes wondered whether he’d feel remorseful about he way he’d let her go.

He scratched his thigh. Stood naked in front of the mirror, looked at his cock and then sat at his desk.

Nothing.  Just that empty Moleskin book. The one he despised because those books looked so pretentious. He wondered what Nietzsche would think.

“Ha fucken ha. Maybe I should create a whole range of plastic bangles that read: ‘What would Nietzsche do?’ A homage to that master philosopher and his definitive thinking on mortality. Mementos that would celebrate the power of thought and show the middle finger to religion. That would fight for the right to reason. The might of intellectual freedom. The freedom of thinking. Because no one thinks anymore. No one wants real freedom. Not really. They want Jesus. Eyes upturned in pain. Bleeding and dying. Nailed to a cross. But no one wants to take responsibility for their own lives. Why should they when every last bit of evil they do can be blamed on some other fucker? Any other fucker but them. Ignoramuses.”

It was then that Hughes realised that he wasn’t thinking. He was thinking about thinking, not really engaged in true thought. Hughes started feeling sorry that he had been such a cunt to the girl. Maybe if he dedicated his first best selling novel to her, she’d forgive him and come back so he could fuck her again. He typed furiously for at least the next half an hour. Then with some degree of satisfaction looked back at what he had written with a wry smile:

“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live….”

Timberland

(For my father - Charles Wheatley Mathews)

I looked to where he lay sleeping

His mouth became a beak,
His body a bird.

Small. Soft and fragile.
How could he be
A man?

Slumped. Gawping.
Cheeks sucked into a hollow.
There was a time
They were filled with words,
And worlds of wonder
Would fall from his lips.

But tonight.
A rasp. A slim sigh.
A soft whistle.
Shrunken and brittle,
Mouth framed with spittle,
No less a man,
No more a giant.

When his last breath left,
I opened the door
Walked into night
Picked up an axe
Chopped the greatest
Tree I could find,
Till it fell.
No more a tree.

Again and
Again the axe struck,
The saw cut through wood.
Hours passed as tears
Turned to resolve.

He died as the sun set
When the new moon
Stalked the sky.

As the night fled
Just before dawn,
I dragged that square box
Onto the lawn.

I stepped right in
Sat down.
Here my father
Would rest his crown.

Then as the stars
Died to sun,
I told him again
That I was his son.

I carried his form
Into the new day
To that casket
I built where
He now would lay.

The Controlled Experiment

SUBJECT A: “Do you remember who you were?”

SUBJECT B: “No. That’s why I kept the journals.”

SUBJECT A: “But now you’ve gone and lost them. Haven’t you?”

SUBJECT B: “I never was any good at keeping things.”

SUBJECT A: “Who will you be now?”

SUBJECT B: “Anyone I want to be. I guess.”

SUBJECT A: “Do you remember what you used to write in your journal?”

SUBJECT B: “Not really. Words though beautiful are a poor replica for the fluidity of thought. Thought has its own mercurial quality. Rising like a wave from the depths. Traveling through a sea of consciousness to break away from a world of wateriness and become one distinct wave that departs. Leaves everything it knows to become unique with the sole purpose of crashing into a shore of meaning.”

SUBJECT A: “If words are so confining, how could your journals be your template for becoming?”

SUBJECT B: “What else is there? You’ve got to make do with what you’ve got. And all that I had were the words in those old moleskin books.”

Qualia (two)

It is not death

That he fears

But an end without meaning.

 

He needs to be seen

Heard, remembered.

For a fraction of legacy

To remain

When he’s gone.

 

It is not forgetting

That I fear

But the loss of memory.

 

The dimming and

Disintegration

Of experience.

Until I no longer see

What made me.

metempsychosis

 

a tendril leans into tomorrow

budded with tender promise

nested in the seam of two worlds -

where failure and fortune make love

before silhouettes take form,

the possible waits to be born.

PHOTO: fern bud IV by ~photonzoo

Rolling stones…

Sisyphus must have known he was buggered the minute he looked at that boulder. The son of kings and a king himself, we can thank Sisyphus for bringing commerce into the world. Surveying the global financial fallout, it’s no small surprise to learn that this mythical Greek was a greedy, lying, niece-fucking son of a bitch. That’s when he wasn’t busy murdering merchants and travelers, stabbing his brother in the back or sticking one in Zeus’ eye.

The swine had it coming to him. So when that massive rock rolled down the hill and landed in front of him, he must have known he was one step closer to hell. Let’s face it, there’s got to be no crueller purgatory than the desperate sweat of shouldering a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again. Never getting to the top of the peak, yet repeating the same trick day in and day out for eternity.

The Sisyphean dilemma sounds like insanity. Despite this most of us willingly shoulder the boulder. Enslaved to a bond; car instalments; medical aid; debt repayments or Edgar’s six month, interest-free payment plan; we reach for the rock and walk the mountain. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. This while the sky yawns above us, and a fantasy of freedom beckons on the other side. 

Only the psychotic, illumined or gifted few give up. For the rest it’s the daily grind of pushing our way closer to the top of our failure, while convincing ourselves we are striving for success.

Perhaps the trick is one of perspective?

Which is what makes Albert Camus is the legendary genius he is. In his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus Camus posits: "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

It is only, Camus says, by acknowledging the absurdity or our situation that we can march towards death – shoulder to the boulder - with a smile on our face.

Art by summitstudios at deviantART.

Fragile (during the fall):

That moment between everything and emptiness.

The dream before the sleep when we were one. Bound in a unity forged by the sun. Before the moon slipped away at dawn and too soon we were two. Separate in all but the forgotten memory of that singular experience.

Another country (for Sean)

I love you much
Miss you more.

This longing grows wings
Flies to the edge of my
World, where by water
Fins unfold
(flip flop)

Falls away from the edge
Swims free
Across too far
And finds a new home
In your heart.

the sum of we

you and me
we fall into slipstream
fields of possibility
where we are neither
ourselves
(bound by blood)

for too long
I hung on
tightly
pulling umbilicals
as if I could hold
you
who could hold
you?

then I flew kites
learned
reeling in
letting go

surrendering forever
to the beyond
between
life and death
you and me
we are one
and then some
we are two
one of the few
who make three
that trinity where
we are everything
and nothing
together
or apart
we are.

we are.

(For Kyle).