██████╗ ██████╗ ███████╗ ████████╗ ██████╗
██╔═══██╗██╔══██╗██╔════╝ ╚══██╔══╝██╔═══██╗
██║ ██║██║ ██║█████╗ ██║ ██║ ██║
██║ ██║██║ ██║██╔══╝ ██║ ██║ ██║
╚██████╔╝██████╔╝███████╗ ██║ ╚██████╔╝
╚═════╝ ╚═════╝ ╚══════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝
██████╗ ██╗ ██████╗ ██████╗ ██████╗ ██╗ ██████╗
██╔════╝ ██║██╔═══██╗██╔══██╗██╔════╝ ██║██╔═══██╗
██║ ███╗██║██║ ██║██████╔╝██║ ███╗██║██║ ██║
██║ ██║██║██║ ██║██╔══██╗██║ ██║██║██║ ██║
╚██████╔╝██║╚██████╔╝██║ ██║╚██████╔╝██║╚██████╔╝
╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═╝ ╚═════╝
██████╗ ███████╗ ██████╗██╗ ██╗██╗██████╗ ██╗ ██████╗ ██████╗
██╔══██╗██╔════╝ ██╔════╝██║ ██║██║██╔══██╗██║██╔════╝██╔═══██╗
██║ ██║█████╗ ██║ ███████║██║██████╔╝██║██║ ██║ ██║
██║ ██║██╔══╝ ██║ ██╔══██║██║██╔══██╗██║██║ ██║ ██║
██████╔╝███████╗ ╚██████╗██║ ██║██║██║ ██║██║╚██████╗╚██████╔╝
╚═════╝ ╚══════╝ ╚═════╝╚═╝ ╚═╝╚═╝╚═╝ ╚═╝╚═╝ ╚═════╝ ╚═════╝
I
The city appears to me in segments of radiance,
dancing in the wind like a freckled cypress upon a stage.
Paper machines race up and down the avenues,
scattered and spackled amidst their paper moons
and paper chocolatiers.
I make a habit of rousing myself early enough
to watch the sunrise kiss every building into
a fiery stupor among a dull smattering of applause.
These antelucan deities never cease to bring me joy.
The machines now thread me in between these golden structures,
weaving a tapestry borne of glass and bone,
of concrete and watchful eyes.
As I stand facing the window,
two planar existences superimpose themselves
before me like overlapping canvases,
a juxtaposition of two realities.
Roman arcades and iron artichokes
blend seamlessly with
neon turnstiles and the marbled biceps
propping up our labyrinthine libraries.
Station by station I am ferried into this concrete wasteland,
a metropolis of modernity and hegemony.
I yearn for the unattainable cliffs in the smog-laden distance,
mountains of untold virtues and potential.
The train barrels onward,
unconvinced of its own mechanical existence.
Through their poor meditations,
the commuters steel their will
against the unabashed oppression of corporate cardsharking
while we lie in wait for our number to be called.
My number has been long forgotten.
For a split second, the world outside the train
dips into the sheerest black night before
returning our unspoiled vistas of immaculate destiny.
Monuments to science and squalor
litter the cobblestone squares that race by in blurs.
Bodies hang from the scaffolding like strands of tinsel.
How far we’ve come in search of the unattainable dream.
The blueprints
of every block of the city unfurl themselves in my head;
I have studied every inch of their recondite surfaces,
and I feel as though I am staggeringly complete.
II
As I glance around the car,
I notice that every passenger has donned a plain white mask,
foreign and terrible,
like a casual matte nightmare.
They claw at the windows in a daze,
tapping incessantly.
Moving to an unoccupied corner,
I begin to wonder whether the buildings we pass
are properly soldered into the landfill beneath our feet,
or if our dwellings will be whisked
into the firmament at the slightest provocation of the elements.
Our houses are semicircular;
it is the natural order of things.
They are aerodynamic.
They are constructed in the image of our creator:
the demilune monarch.
A more advanced populace
would surely erect their housing
in the same manner,
since the arrangement of our city blocks
cannot be efficiently modeled after any pattern
other than the quincunx.
Our urban developers aver that the quincunx
is the building block of modern society.
I must take a minute to thank our Roman ancestors
for this model, transmitted through the centuries
on the surface of a single copper coin.
III
A merciful cloudscape adorns the rooftops now,
soft and elegant on the fingertips of its passersby.
Beyond these doorways of illusion, several wrinkled hands
manipulate the cost of living, the figures
that dictate every aspect of societal progress.
The only alternative is the wretched catacombs
spinning in a frenzy below the subway tunnels,
where the sightless and ancient ones are said to weave baskets
and brew themselves to inebriation.
Apologies are in order;
I have become passionate with age,
to an almost detrimental degree,
and I am prone to pontificating
on subjects generally perceived
as mundane.
IV
Beyond the confines of my residence,
the paper machines, though soulless,
make me feel safe.
They take me in like a lost child and nurture my being.
I can imagine an infinite train line,
stretching into the hazel horizon,
bending the salted waves outward
into the shores of the neighboring nations.
At each stop, the meandering platforms describe
a static environment. Their sterile gaze
keeps us rooted in the merciless fist of fiscal obligation.
Fluorescent lamps and briefcases collapse into a deafening void.
This is acceptable by modern standards.
I disembark the train into the heart of the city.
A verdant park colors the interstices
of the wrought-iron staircase as I descend.
Without purpose, several bodies are siphoned
into the madness that accompanies
the din of the city,
never to return.
This too is acceptable by modern standards.
V
The bedlam of a carnival unravels before me now,
a mystical environment belonging
entirely to the fabled ancestors.
Engine steam enshrouds the scene vial by vial,
viscid and alluring.
I am reminded of a line in a book I read recently,
"in chaos, there is fertility"; very clever.
At the bureau, every shade of grey welcomes me:
smog, fog,
concrete, steel,
vinyl, plastic,
granite, marble,
tweed, polyester,
squirrel, pigeon,
rubber, asphalt.
And branching outward from this grey impetus,
the surrealist scenes of a noir film I saw years ago
now pepper my vision——not Casablanca, no——
as best I can recall, it was a film wherein
a French actress and a Japanese architect
discuss the concepts of memory
and love in post-war Hiroshima.
The gorgeous dialogue and tasteful artistry
clash ludicrously with the tawdry filth before my eyes.
Egregious signs for the jewelers Graff
and the chocolatiers Royce interrupt these imagined scenes.
Ghosts stroll down the avenues,
meditating on the revelry they are forced
to endure for eternity.
I must sympathize.
Dreaming tigers and flittering parakeets
run amok in the park to my left,
golden in the milky morning twilight of autumn.
The romanticism of modern life
strikes me as disgustingly sweet and syrupy,
grabbing at the ankles like a deluge of molasses.
VI
One of the avenue ghosts strays from its predetermined path
and enters a museum across the street;
I am inclined to follow.
Columns of old ivory and centurions of bravado
paint the scene. A metaphysical hand,
easily sixty feet tall, reaches down from the vaulted ceiling
to greet us. Color divides the landscape before me:
murky blues, glacial whites,
vinaceous reds, iridescent greens.
Spinning silently,
the museum resembles a provincial rotunda,
a carousel of priceless melancholy.
A desert of abandonment reigns
over the atmosphere here.
I can feel the heartache of every artist, every patron, every student.
With my gaze cast downward
to avoid eye contact with the metaphysical hand,
I spy a single seashell lying idly at my feet.
What an odd place to find such a thing, I think,
stooping to pick up the glowing anachronism.
As expected, it immediately burns a hole in my hand,
buries itself into my palm,
and fuses its chitinous core with my bones.
My skin seals up the wound as quickly as it was wrought.
Presently we——that is, myself and the ghost
from the avenue outside——wander the museum
in utter tranquility,
admiring with our whole being the scenes of hallowed spires,
segments of mannequins,
timeless clocks in the centers of plazas,
almond trees in bloom,
plumes of smoke from colored trains,
rainbows of reconciliation,
statues of horses frozen mid-gallop,
indiscriminate mechanical parts,
shades of honey and amber,
unfathomable exotic fruits,
shadows elongated by a perpetually-setting sun;
even our familiar Roman arcades make a return——
now in a series of infinite rows and columns
upon a dismal checkerboard.
Wandering this maze of paintings,
I relish their confounding
and disorienting planes of illusion;
I find solace in their heartbreaking isolation.
Where some may revile these works
as sinister and sly, I peer keenly into their depths
and discover gorgeous dreams within.
VII
The serenity this experience bestows upon me is unparalleled;
I am wakened and wizened.
The human condition is revealed to me
as an array of ideas with which
the mind may view the world from afar.
From such a removed perspective,
the mind may act as a satellite for the body…
or a harbinger for the soul.
These brain paintings bring us closer to the realm
of heaven. a heaven that threatens to reveal us
to an omniscient god. From where I stand,
a singular tinge of malaise settles
upon the concept of modern life
like pollen on the hem of a dress.
The world whirls around me in a prism of convoluted equations.
Memories of alcoholic escapades,
cubicle monotony,
scarlet institutions,
schoolyard antics,
and lost loves
race before my spectral form.
I am genuinely touched.
I am so touched in fact that I feel unable
to formulate thoughts or speech.
Heartache lifts from me like a sin being absolved.
The potential of everything that exists
is now gravid with the potential of what remains to be seen.
Yet I can see it all now,
standing upon this perilous precipice
of desire and mortality:
only the most perceptive eye has the ability to see
beyond the surface of reality,
to see that our entire default perception is tainted by enigma.
This world we inhabit is itself a vast museum of surreal visions.
Visions of universal configurations, the fabrics of time,
the afterlife.
At the moment of death,
a brief flash of terminal lucidity is said to cross
the terminal threshold into the realm of the living.
This is most often witnessed in the instant
right before living perception ends,
immediately preceding the obliteration of the senses.
VIII
As the machinery of night descends,
I return refreshed to the invincible stream of bodies.
As if reflecting the lives of its consumers,
the city appears battered and broken
as the streetlights flicker to life,
revealing cracks and blemishes
in the dichotomy of humanness,
the balance of beauty and reality.
The spiral of the shell embedded in my palm
glows silver against this pale backdrop.
I hold my hand outward to dimly illuminate the street,
watching with intrigue as the fog parts before me as I walk.
Sans analysis, I follow the path that unfolds before me
and find myself strolling casually
down a facsimile of Prince Street,
utterly devoid of my former fellow pedestrians.
Presently I am standing before a storefront
from the old neighborhood,
an antiquarian shop and bookbindery.
I enter warily,
the peal of a small bell above the door announcing my intrusion.
No proprietors make themselves known to me.
Much like the museum,
this old-fashioned shop tempts me
with its labyrinthine networks of aisles and shelves,
walls and possibilities.
My subcutaneous shell,
guiding me all the while,
twinges with a mild burning delight
and leads me down a creaking wooden staircase
where chips of paint glitter around my feet with each step.
The expanse before me opens up
into a massive palladium of marble and sandstone.
Some aspect of my gut instinct insists
that this librous temple must house the rectilinear solutions
to modern existence.
An ancient Greek statue stands before me,
wielding a book like the spear of a terracotta warrior.
The text carved into the surface of the pages is eroded.
Foreign, but indecipherable regardless.
Beneath the smooth arches, I stand in awe,
shivering as if febrile while an eerie idle wind
whistles through the cloisters
spanning omnidirectionally
into the infinite subterranean expanse.
The calcite in my palm fades from a brilliant iridescence
to a dull luster, indicating to me that I have arrived
at its predetermined destination.
Looking up, I follow with my eyes
the curvature of a luminous spiral
soaring into the celestial domed ceiling,
possibly housing a reliquary of religious icons of some sort.
Our pallid statuesque companion across the parquet floor
rotates in place to face me and speaks with a booming drawl
in an unfathomable tongue,
mimicking all the while the stance of a javelin thrower.
My eye is attracted to a small figurine of Ariadne
placed on the plinth of the much larger statue.
The image of Ariadne is important to note here,
for she would later reappear in my dreams
to guide me in my escape
from this very labyrinth.
I am most grateful to my marmoreal savior.
IX
The familiar Greek statuette calls to mind the old tale
of a siren who when navigating a treacherous
and tempestuous sea with lacy silhouettes
crawling along its surface,
dove deep into the frigid waters to avoid falling debris——
meteors of limestone bricks and stained glass,
golden ingots and wagon wheels,
birdlike carvings and shattered ceramic urns;
the deluge of a castle in the sky——
only to find splayed before her
the ruins of an ancient city and at its center
a clandestine sunken cathedral.
Evidently the drowned city had been constructed
throughout the eons via the jettisons of detritus
from the stratospheric metropolis.
From within, one could hear the chiming of bells,
the chanting of priests,
and the ruminations of an organ,
sonore sans dureté.
An insidious undercurrent dragged her hypnotically
to the cathedral, wherein she became
enamored of a statue of a handsome Breton,
immaculately preserved with eyes of diamond glinting
in sync with the fiery storm galvanizing at the water’s surface.
As the story goes, the siren has been sealed
in this impressionist composition ever since.
I realize I’ve lost the thread of my own tale and anyway,
our stone sentry dwelling beneath the bookstore
does not seem to possess the malicious morals
of the statue who dictated the siren’s fate.
I imagine sunsets
and refrain from touching the heavenly texts
populating the walls.
X
Aboveground again,
I take a seat on a park bench nearby,
observing my surroundings,
slowly becoming convinced that the city is a logical machine,
a construct caked in blood,
forming a network of oppression
that feeds upon its victims
while engorging its kings.
Every breath taken by its inhabitants as they traverse its streets
is a debt accrued.
Over time we feel the pressure of the atmosphere
on our lungs in the form of ailments and neuroses
as the city collects on what it is rightfully owed.
The very objects that once granted life
and numinous adoration
now act as carcinogens,
corrupting our cells in retribution
for our unwitting crimes.
XI
In spite of this,
the city is also an incubator for expressionism
and teleological study.
The idle observer flourishes here,
vivified by the antediluvian social values
and art deco skyscrapers,
the thousands of intersections of millions of lives.
We navigate the primary-toned grid,
which as Mondrian once posited, operates both
as the "destruction of natural appearance;
and construction through continuous opposition of pure means."
In short a dynamic rhythm,
a pattern of existence that can be traced and calculated,
manipulated and marketed.
Every decision we make is stolen, repackaged,
and sold back to us as if it is a favor.
The imperatives of capitalism thus render our vapid days
as repeating loops,
a simulation of bitter irony.
Urban creation
is a spiritual endeavor.
We must surrender ourselves
to moonlight meandering,
to the enigma of the hour,
to the paper chocolatiers,
to the suicide of ideology,
to the implacable terror of midnight,
the red towers, the venial lust,
the desert landscapes of nightmares and dreams.
We must surrender ourselves
to the melancholy of departure, to the welcoming minds
of strangers on the train. We must unfetter ourselves
from the lyricism and metaphysics of modern living.
XII
A muffled voice above fizzles to life to notify me
that I have reached the last stop on this edifying train line.
Here ends my final peregrination,
where I am once again reminded of
the cypress,
the siren,
the shell,
the statue,
all dancing like figurines in a wind-up music box
in the crawlspace of a dusty attic.
A forgotten sanctuary where holy light creeps in
through towering windows, where the twinkling trinket
remains aghast at the clutter gathering at its base,
a clutter which threatens to extinguish
its fragile life.
We are rescued one by one from the confines of our delusions.
We are welcomed with open arms
by the guardians of hermeneutic values.
May this entry act as a farewell to metaphysics.
