I have dreamt of Cornwall
all pasture land- pasture lands and green farms;
ancient slate home fires kindled with evening love
and hedge-rowed narrow lanes leading down to the sea.
Sea cliffs have visited me since my childhood dreams,
visions of millenia of lovers and poets
standing at land's end,
the celtic blue-robed home
of the black and white cross.
I have dreamt of Cornwall and of wandering princes
regal like raptors astrid the wind,
and minstrel galleries are full of tales
of those who gather for pints and good cheer
beside the pub-fire pub-fires of musical hearths.
I have dreamt of Cornwall:
there is forever-music in the tides,
pulsing through the heart of this land,
the legends of sea people
astir in the early morning fog.
I don't know why
I don't know how,
cold...so cold.
I don't know why
I don't know how
darkness and coldness
Like a veil
Like a curtain
Like an enfolding fence
of bitterness in the face of love.
A descending of pain
in the face of joy.
Like an abortion of friendship.
I was so rich with you
So rich in a womb of wealth
Wealth of love
And acceptance
And hope
For friends
And friends.
You were, somehow, my strength.
Friendship is the truest strength.
Breakfast with Jeff and Nicole
Drinks with Ed and Laurel
Football at Kevin’s
And dropping in on Diana downstairs.
Dancing at Soul House
Meeting on busses
Calls in the twilight
What’s on tonight?
What’s on tonight?
Somewhere
Somehow,
I die without you.
Somewhere
Somehow
I die without you in my life.
And it was all so cold
And dark.
so cold and dark.
The eclipse of a circle of trust.
I don’t know why
I don’t know how
A wrong turn
on the road somehow.
Some where
Some how.
But those few years,
Those few solid years with you in my life.
My living room,
My dreams,
My loves and delights.
No other group of people ever allowed me to be so alive.
Thank you, forever. Thank you.
Thank you from the reality
that we once shared in the night.
Thank you from the togetherness
we once smiled upon, laughing over coffee,
dancing in the lights of life.
Thank you with theater tickets
And stage productions,
With evening dinners looking up into the Skye.
Thank you from far away, far away,
Coming home again some day?
But always, always will I share
These moments with you.
And every night turns to day.
Even the longest nights turn today.
Though you are not even old enough to view this blog, know our love, beautiful Grace.
They come here and think that this is some new holiday retreat. Cornwall is real, and real. Cornwall has been living from tourism for 2000 years and longer. They laughed at my reality tonight, neither out of politeness nor out of fear. Only because it was funny. There are only seconds, but sometimes days anymore. Once there were months.
I bow before your humble seat
My lord
The bay is yours my lord,
you are right.
Crush the demon,
My lord.
All that I have made
With your father
Was true
And is yours.
You are nothing and you are everything my lord,
my soveriegn and my king.
P.B.S
Michelle, what we made was precious. I have dreamt of you. You were that unspeakable in me.
What can lovers be but akward? What can love say but I accept? What is the ruin but the reward? I truly sit on a gray morning overlooking the ocean and steel away, steel away, like Conan at the birth of the blade: like lovers in the garments of death eating at their handholding love. There was nothing I ever wanted more than your body:
"Noone, not women, not beast, not men, but this...you can trust."
This blog is brought to you by the Vibram FiveFingers KSO's, an incredible shoe that everybody should take with them on their world tour:
So I just returned from the trail here in Cornwall and can't wait to get back on it. I've got some school work to finish up and then hopefully I'll be able to do the southwestern most point at the end of the week. I've got a number of poems in the make but this one just came out this morning--it's my first love poem that sounds like a hip-hop track and that's interesting. It's very Gorillaz inspired because being down here in Cornwall I realize how much I would like to be living on Plastic Beach, and being here in Newquay I realize how much I am living on plastic beach.
But hey, Newquay's fucking cool too.
This poem is for the little woman with the big car:
Strong in the bed
She’s so strong.
Strong in her head
She’s not wrong.
Strong on the ground
She runs circles round
The boys.
The boys.
Strong in the bed she don’t give a fuck
Strong in her head she don’t give a fuck
Strong on the ground she’s out
Running around
Running around
Out running circles round all the boys.
I’ve got a five centimeter chin chin in my hand
And I refuse to go over into the heartland
I’m a refugee in the heat of the desert
Exiled and spit out upon the shores of the
Plastic beach.
Plastic beach.
Lego land world of inside and out.
Plastic beach.
Plastic beach
Lego land world of forever and ever
in and out in and out
Like I want to do to you,
In and out in and out
Nailing you down on a cushion or two.
I’ve got a five centimeter rum tum in my hand
And I’m refusing to get out of the promised mother fucking land
I’m at peace in the desert and a refugee in town
You gotta five centimeter fucking party coming down on
Plastic beach
Plastic beach
Running round in my head on
Plastic beach
Plastic beach
Running naked getting laid.
She’s got a seven inch cock and she don’t give a fuck
She’s got more than you could give her so just shut the fuck up.
She’s sitting on the sofa waiting to get nailed to the door
And they’re kicking in the windows and they’re busting through the floor to get
At that ass
At that ass
Goddamn she is mean
At that ass
At that ass
Her shit’s more than just sexy.
Cause she’s a dirty mother fucker and she don’t give a fuck
Running circles round the boys that are stuck in the funk.
She’s got her balls in her pocket and her holster on her hip
She’s a demon riding mother with a devil on the slip.
These are Merlin cliffs
As old as the leaves of grass
Towering high and raven-clawed perched
Above a sea of glass;
These are Merlin trod causeways
The right-of-way to weavers of dreams,
For somewhere in our legendary time
Merlin walked to Tintagel
To deliver Arthur to his fate.
And you have never known a dream so sweet
As on this thick hair of grass so green
On all a grey-winter’s eve.
These are Merlin tracks,
Bounding high through my mind with revenue;
These are Merlin tracks
Leaving their residue in my memory
Perhaps
Even
In
Now.
What is time,
-Even though it were to be stretched a lifetime wide across the bones of the dead-
To the walker of dreams and mystery
Who crowns kings through the fate that he brings
What is time?
Like leaves of grass upon an hour glass of seas
And so
Unbounding seas.
He didn’t know how he had come unclothed. It seemed as though they had been talking for eternity. Neither did he know how she had come unclothed. He only knew that there had been no talk of sex, even as she rubbed his man and pet it with her soft finger tips.
They had talked of all things, of things they’d been, of things they’d never be, of things they would be. They’d talked of places that only they could have ever seen, they’d talked of events that only they could have known. They’d talked of people they’d only ever met in dreams.
“How would it be if I sat on you?” she asked, stroking him gently and nodding her chin in her hand. She looked casually up into his eyes as he lay against the pillows, the music far away but everywhere, the candles embracing the silk of the bed curtains.
“What? As if to penetrate?” he asked, as if the idea had never occurred to him.
“Yes, would you like that?”
“Very much,” he answered without thinking.
She spit in her hand and his eyes slid back in his head as she slid it down his shaft, as she straddled him, as he entered her and her tongue met his all the talk they had ever known or ever would know became one ultimate language.
Was this a dream or a vision, was this a reality or a mystery, was this a truth or an enlightenment? Was this an Arthur, a Lancelot, a Guinevere? Was there ever any way to know, or if in knowing ever any way to make it undone?
Merlin walked with the child over the causeway of the ancients, elder even then Merlin, or, for that matter, Arthur.
“I’m going to a special school?” Arthur was asking.
“Yes, just as I said.” Merlin’s reply was not short, but matter of fact.
“You mean, like…”
“Harry what’s-his-face?” Merlin answered before the question could be asked.
“Yes, like him?”
“Oh, you are, dear boy. You are.”
“I am what?”
Merlin turned toward the lad.
“That’s just the point,” he said.
Time spins on, in fractals and in algorithms, in dance and in sex, upon sea-cliffs and leaves of grass, and the distance is not so far or near, is not so small or so clear as all the yesterdays in the memory of everyman. It is walked upon like dirt and lived under like rain, but Merlin knows
the great shades of goodness that reflect in the fountain of wisdom.
Merlin knows.
The yacht was off the windward side, pulling in from the channel to the bay. And not even Arthur’s great unknowing could undo the return of he whose fate it was to carry the old wound, the wound before time became what it is to us today. Lancelot approached and all the lovers in all the world were eunuchs underneath his magic spell, even his own magic; no chaos could intrude for the wound was too great, and the wound was his strength, and the wound was strength.
“You lied to me!” the boy looked up, bitterness and hurt in his eyes.
“Yes I did.” Merlin did not smile, nor did he frown.
“But you said truth is the doorway!”
"So it is. But even so, it is still only a door. Dear boy, do not confuse the path with the destination. The door looks one way from this side but from the other it is very different indeed. Truth is not enlightenment, my boy. No, not at all.”
“But how will I ever trust you again?” Arthur cried, almost in despair.
“Arthur!” Merlin’s voice was a demand. “The question is will you. And the answer to that question, dear boy, is the destination, and your fate.”
“Unless you’re lying.” Arthur put his hands in his pockets and pulled away when the wizard put his hand to the back of his head. “And stop calling me ‘dear boy’. I am Arthur!”
I think you could hear the ground quake when he spoke these last words.
Merlin gazed after him as Arthur walked upwards toward the school yard, his chin on his breast.
“So you are,” Merlin whispered. “So you are.”
It was later, much later, when Arthur needed Merlin, and did not have him. It was the time of Arthur’s greatest trials. “Merlin!” Arthur cried, the rocks sounding with the force of the name. “Merlin! Where are you? I need you!”
“Why do you need me?” A voice answered back.
“I need you! I need someone I can trust!”
“Trust?” The voice laughed. “How can you trust me now, after all of this?”
“I don’t know,” Arthur cried. “I just do. How do I know I still love her, after all this? How do I know I still am King, after all this? Because it is so!”
“The destination,” the voice told him, “is always the beginning.”
And somewhere, sometime, a boy woke up from his dream and knew that he would be king.
I started out from Newquay today at 1:05 pm and walked 4 or 5 miles in an hour. That pace is too fast but it was invigorating! It is especially keen starting off into the first roll-the-pant-legs-up traverse, cold water cooling the feet, shoes made just for this, and Handel’s “Fireworks” playing away on the ipod. Climb up a rocky face and peak on top of the cliffs just as Wolfmother starts in, Jonathan Livingston Seagull soaring at the rocks below, God’s own kite. Walking on pretending I’m a WWII British Commando in training in love, in love, in love with you, the Long Winding Road, the boats upon the wind, the smiles of walkers passing by.
The hotel bar is like a kingly domain, a vision from a slick child-hood soap opera, all yachts and surfers in the bay, and I-I am the king of France, well not THE king of France but A king of France visiting these blissful shores, all Daphne du Maurier and bay window beauties in the jukebox by the cigarette machine, all lazy holidays pushing the body and the spirit to new limits of living because life is all there is until nothingness and nothingness will take care of itself, like a constant itching in inescapable places.
You are the light that shines in the darkest night;
When all else fails you do not.
You were my
greatest supporter,
you were my
greatest friend.
You were my
greatest lover.
Our life in Hawaii
was not perfect,
but I remember it
with a great fondness,
with a great tenderness.
You deserved a
depth that I did not deliver:
a depth of unders-
tanding,
a depth of knowing
that I did not provide
because I am a
coward to that place inside
which is vulnerable,
which is like you:
open to being hurt
but open to being loved.
You are one of the
strongest women I have
ever known;
you are one of the most
unaffectatious women I can
ever imagine;
you are one of the wisest
people I will ever meet,
and I have hurt you many
times.
I hurt you because it
was easier to hurt you
than to find that place
inside that is ready to be
destroyed and made
new.
I wanted so much
out of life,
so much out of love,
so much out of living,
but how much was I
wanting to give?
My soul was like a
hard rock
and you were like a
soft leaf
and I am shattering
on your fallen-ness
and you are still
giving to the earth.
You are a seedling
growing in wild places
trampled and
eaten and
drowned.
I am a torrent of
anger
and a Kali of wrath
and you have lain
yourself at my feet,
the perfect Shiva of
self-sacrifice.
Your pain has
become mine
and I am tossing in
the wind,
but can not will myself released,
no cannot will
myself released.
You were my
greatest desire
but you were far
greater than what I
desired.
You were my
greatest hope
but you were far
greater than any hope
I could imagine.
I am shipwrecked
on the shores of you
I am awash
on the beach of your love.
03-15/16-10
Sunday, March 14, 2010
04-14-10
She sat at the table thinking about a cigarette and sipping her lager, her lips were the kiss of a thousand partings, her eyes were the joys of an eternal fuck, her hands the promise of long and deep friendships, running on through the countryside and tipping over into quiet dinners and fireside chats.
She sat at the table thinking about a cigarette and sipping her lager and when he walked in with his phallus on his sleeve they became lovers because that was the heartbeat of life. Fractured, disjointed, and all Keith Richards in the air but lovers they were, like colonists in Africa eaten down to the souls of their feet by lions. There’s only one thing to say for such lovers: God bless them. What is the price for feeling love? What cost is demanded of the soul for the feeling of magic which accompanies the new and fresh scent of a lover on your tongue?
I have wandered in the depths of the maddened night and have come ashore come ashore on the sunny cliffs of Camelot, far western shores with a river running through it like a fractured spleen. Jack’s spleen, Jack’s sparrowed spleen. Fallen are the houses of Usher and Atreides, fallen is my heart, fallen is the dew rolled away like Christmas dinner in the gift wrapping ecstasies of pure white dreams. Where once I pursued purity and worshipped at the idol of the holy eunuch life has forced a more enduring purity into my grasp and for this I have forsaken home and country and pursued a course of natural charity of the appetites. Until all appetites are satisfied none can be surrendered but all must be balanced on the silver chord of living all kettle drum kettle drum steel steel steel.
And what is the sound of a thousand riding lovers beating the sheets with the rhythm of the pulse? What is the sound of the distant gasping thrusts of words bleeding deep in the caverns of the ocean floor? What is the sound of the mighty unknown warriors dancing to the death for the glory of their gods? What is the sound of the far away horizon when I know the feeling of the wind and it is just here upon me, the anointing of the day of redemption.
REDEMPTION,
REDEMption,
Redemption,
redemp...
is at hand, like a popsicle stick melting in the heat under the summer sun, the last true sacrifice in the battle for the good, neglected for the worship of the holy eunuch.
She sat at the table thinking about a cigarette and sipping her lager and he was no eunuch and they were bold in their desire, as all good children of the deep. There is no second hand second hand but only the desire of the first, true, love; only the dreams of the one vision of beauty in the eyes of another; the perennial blue of Krishna Kahn on the make.
Well, I haven't actually seen him, but he'd be perfect for Cornwall, to be sure. Since I've been here the last two weeks I have learned enough about Cornish smugglers, pirates, divers, surfers and drinkers to fill up at least two Jimmy albums. Newquay, Cornwall, where I am currently, is the classic beach town with VW microbusses and enough surf shops to give you a rash.
So I went surfing twice here. I bought myself a 5 mm wetsuit and dove in and I didn't feel anything too bad...until I got sick the next day and have been bed ridden for a week. It didn't help that I started drinking again, which I knew was going to happen and had accepted before I came--after all, this is Britain--and staying out until four in the morning didn't help my almost pneumonia.
But one thing about the drinking was that I learned that I don't really care for it no matter where I am. It's not that it's not a good time, cause it is, but boy your body really takes the beating. I've been sober for about five days now and am just starting to feel my chi strengthening up again. After a good night out you can really feel your liver giving way too. So I'm going out tonight but I'm sticking to club soda.
Anyway, here's another tune that calls up some pictures of Cornwall. It's the opening bit from the 1990 TNT production of "Treasure Island" with a very young Christian Bale. Great version of a great story, but the opening bit with Oliver Reed coming in on the boat is the best, and this looks and feels exactly like Cornwall.
(I couldn't find just the intro nor could I cut it down so I'll beg your forgiveness as the first 10 minutes of the film are here. If you don't like the poetry below you might enjoy the film at least...)
I'm heading out on the Southwest Trail for two weeks on Saturday, so hopefully I'll have some good stories to tell when I get back. Until then here's the latest passable poetry as well:
02-23-10
Solitude:
Like singularity’s twin
A moon without a sun
A summer without end;
The Valley’s dip deep
And cliffs are mounted high:
Why did I chase her away
For this loneliness inside?
I guess it’s just the cowboy in me.
Melancholy on the sea cliffs of
Grey ocean sky,
More than sunny days
This solitude is so high
I guess it’s just the cowboy inside.
02-24-10
So in love but so far away
Lost in gone today, here yesterday,
Wanting to just go back
Or come back
And you just don’t know.
So hard to feel in this used-to-be
So hard to see in this what-could-be
So hard to tell
Which-way-is-me,
Without me
Without you
Without
Without
Without in the night
The lights are within
And one of these doorways
Is the right
And one of these doorways
Is the right
And one of these doorways is the way that led out
Where you were led
led
led
like a ball full of sinking
you sit on the stoop and wait,
and you know:
the outside is the worst within,
where every step is the way back in
to one place.
But out here is every place,
But no place,
But never any place
Always every place
Without...end.
So in love, but so far away
Lost in used-to-be
A me
With you,
With me.
02-24-10
Trying to hold on
To the romantic
The seascape
And sky
Pulled away by the jungle
The truth of the bush
Of the other on the other side.
A pillar of clouds
In the sea
Of the both:
The center is missing
And truth’s lost in a ghost
And it swallows us whole.
The sea
The sea--
Like Adonais
We still strive
And the depths are our comfort
Our graves
Our last wife.
02-24-10
I do love it here:
Each day the feeling grows deeper,
And broader,
Flowing from within and without
The great womb of God
Embracing me,
The great broad way,
No longer straight and narrow as it once was,
But now slow and vast,
The timing of wise men,
Whose time, perhaps,
Is past,
Is past,
Is perhaps never again already always the time of tomorrow
For tomorrow shall come
And I am grateful
And pray that it will
And perhaps
I will have the chance to fall
In love
As I did once with you.
But tonight is the sound of sleep
In a far away glen
Calling through the curtains
To the dreams of a child,
And the great grey way
Of an eternal womb
Of embrace
And the eternal wisdom of a father,
Whose eye flashes long love
And a glancing pain of the cross
That he bears into time-enough-for-today’s-tomorrows.
02-24-10
Dear Body,
I love you. You are not a second-class citizen. But if I have to choose between you or my spirit, and one of you has to take the weight and punishment of living, I decide for you to take it. I hope you’ll understand, dear earth-born citizen, dirt of dirt, grass of grass, tree of tree, animal of animal: the spirit is more important because it is the vehicle of the soul, as you are the vehicle of the spirit. I love a Lamborghini but if I had to destroy a Lamborghini or its driver I’d destroy the Lamborghini.
Just saying,
I hope you understand,
-N
02-25-10
One week.
One week like my rum:
Sweet and strong.
Is there a world beyond the one we’re on?
Neil Young always gets me
Is there a world beyond the one we’re on?
One week
And the ocean flows strong
Is there another world beyond the one we’re on?
I’ve looked forever for a girl to love
Perhaps forever’s just not long enough
Perhaps forever is just too long
For the young and strong
And the young and the strong
And the young and the strong.
Overlook the overlook:
It’s all so well lit anyway
Overlook the overlook
Just one way home here anyway
And it might be with me
And it might be with me.
“I want to live
I want to give
I’ve been a miner for
A Heart of gold
And I’m getting old…”
The ocean…
I’m getting old.
02-25-10
“Hi. You’re the most interesting person here.”
“Her?”
“She’s so dull she’s actually interesting.”
“Doesn’t mean I’d enjoy doing her,
Though I would,
But that’s a different story.”
“Story? Would you like a story? No? too bad, hoity toity, cause I could tell you a story…but you’re too dull to follow. Never mind, I’m shallow, don’t bother,
I’ve got nothing left to offer.”
“Wait…her?”
“I’d wait up for her till five.”
02-26-10
I take the best of all I’ve ever seen
But sometimes what I’ve seen takes the piss right out of me.
And I’d say you grabbed me even though you’ve never been so ungrabbed in all the days of your life.
I’m here as a part of a permanent star
Traveled far, traveled far,
To end up where you are,
And I’m glad you smile in the evening when the black cat walks through the dark.
You make life more special,
Every time I see
Your smile
And your style
And your being
Like a body that doesn’t know where it’s been
But only that it’s been being,
And to quit is a sacrifice too heavy to ever consider taking on.
You’ve got a hard shell and you’re comfortable there,
And inside you know how much you’re loving it here,
And like me you try to open
Try to open
Try to open
The door.
But the way seems barred
And you’ve been pondering hard
Break the bank
Break the bank
Break the bank
Or the bank’s gonna break me.
And someday soon I hope we know what it’s like to be free.
