HEREAFTER THE HEREAFTER SHALL BE BEHIND US
36. HEREAFTER THE HEREAFTER SHALL BE BEHIND US (nyc, august, 1967):
Just like Telemachius just like Valens just like Valentinian and Gratian and all those Hadrian-type guys on a big cheesy throne that wouldn't stay still my achievements had rattled my soul had kept me on edge had kept me moving and every shop-worn turn of events by people from Thrace or those varied Germanic nutty tribes bugging my borders I walked with suspicion and carried knives and featured arms everywhere I went : the dope-sacked dowagers of night and morning the criminal minds who had infested the grottoes the tankmen and the voyagers of time there was nowhere I could really sit and all that was within my mind began to matter little : I'd come into the city on a hot August morning rolling in like my own brushfire on a bus-full of wheels and I was completely unaware and not knowing a thing except where I'd always been and the new task was to sort out for myself where I was and why I was entering - almost like another time zone - a new place with new shackles that claimed to be no shackles at all wide streets filled with people teeming lightwaves stacked with scientific movement and I walked to park to talk to the dark sat myself down on a rock to watch all the matters while right near me these New York children played and scampered and their ringleader mothers pushed wagons and carriages with even younger kids and all along the way their were aimless city people tough kids too-wise-for-the-moment types way ahead of themselves already in flowers and wearing odd hats and open to opinions and proclaiming loudly the natural love of the life they lived all the while seeking the green grass freedoms of a thousand tribal years before - their entire civilization was laid out neatly for them and each step along the way offered a period from which to copy : the flute the guitar the peacock feathers the hair the boots the leather sandals the sheer tops the dance and the forms and the fringe and I looked around and said simply : 'this is human but is all this me?' : and I realized I just wasn't sure yet had never before faced off these sorts of questions and for whatever form the moment took I determined that I had to live through them but upon leaving this again I took to the streets and felt a senseless and complete alienation the sort one experiences upon realizing the complete nothingness in which one's being is wrapped I had nowhere to go I had nothing I had maybe twenty dollars forever and the old aimless field of everything before me was ready like a huge yawning void to just pull me in and see me destroyed but it's funny in a way how the body recovers and the spirit takes over one learns how to talk and acceded what questions to ask and what portents to read : storefronts and parking lots the sweaty emergences of buses and trains in a hundred degree heat wherein the streets seem fluid and beginning to melt and the reflections of buildings in the awful hot air seem to move and waver with every other motion as the harsh sunlight beats and settles down onto every item before you and in looking for somewhere to be or just somewhere to sit everything has to be weighted in first for everything starting from zero alike has its repercussions and later results - things which could come back to haunt or things could could help and I sought only for what I could seek and what I did need and - at that fine little August moment all of my own - I knew it was the beginning the starting point the very day one of a fiery new life for myself.
Just like Telemachius just like Valens just like Valentinian and Gratian and all those Hadrian-type guys on a big cheesy throne that wouldn't stay still my achievements had rattled my soul had kept me on edge had kept me moving and every shop-worn turn of events by people from Thrace or those varied Germanic nutty tribes bugging my borders I walked with suspicion and carried knives and featured arms everywhere I went : the dope-sacked dowagers of night and morning the criminal minds who had infested the grottoes the tankmen and the voyagers of time there was nowhere I could really sit and all that was within my mind began to matter little : I'd come into the city on a hot August morning rolling in like my own brushfire on a bus-full of wheels and I was completely unaware and not knowing a thing except where I'd always been and the new task was to sort out for myself where I was and why I was entering - almost like another time zone - a new place with new shackles that claimed to be no shackles at all wide streets filled with people teeming lightwaves stacked with scientific movement and I walked to park to talk to the dark sat myself down on a rock to watch all the matters while right near me these New York children played and scampered and their ringleader mothers pushed wagons and carriages with even younger kids and all along the way their were aimless city people tough kids too-wise-for-the-moment types way ahead of themselves already in flowers and wearing odd hats and open to opinions and proclaiming loudly the natural love of the life they lived all the while seeking the green grass freedoms of a thousand tribal years before - their entire civilization was laid out neatly for them and each step along the way offered a period from which to copy : the flute the guitar the peacock feathers the hair the boots the leather sandals the sheer tops the dance and the forms and the fringe and I looked around and said simply : 'this is human but is all this me?' : and I realized I just wasn't sure yet had never before faced off these sorts of questions and for whatever form the moment took I determined that I had to live through them but upon leaving this again I took to the streets and felt a senseless and complete alienation the sort one experiences upon realizing the complete nothingness in which one's being is wrapped I had nowhere to go I had nothing I had maybe twenty dollars forever and the old aimless field of everything before me was ready like a huge yawning void to just pull me in and see me destroyed but it's funny in a way how the body recovers and the spirit takes over one learns how to talk and acceded what questions to ask and what portents to read : storefronts and parking lots the sweaty emergences of buses and trains in a hundred degree heat wherein the streets seem fluid and beginning to melt and the reflections of buildings in the awful hot air seem to move and waver with every other motion as the harsh sunlight beats and settles down onto every item before you and in looking for somewhere to be or just somewhere to sit everything has to be weighted in first for everything starting from zero alike has its repercussions and later results - things which could come back to haunt or things could could help and I sought only for what I could seek and what I did need and - at that fine little August moment all of my own - I knew it was the beginning the starting point the very day one of a fiery new life for myself.
posted by gary j. introne at 6:02 AM
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