I'm on a train, traveling from my home in East Podunk to where my mom lives in Burgeoning Neo-Third-World Red State. This is a journey of some 12 hours, but being broke I've not booked a sleeper, rather I'm zoned out in my coach seat (still better than coach on an airplane). I left around 9:00 p.m. and I've been imbibing an elixir of ginkgo and gotu kola all night, along with coffee and Lovhers and Picture Theory by Nicole Brossard.
The latter tomes are headier than any chimie and it feels that they have contributed mightily to what comes next. It's around 7:00 in the morning and I'm exhausted and high on feminist signifyin' rebellion (and ginkgo/gotu kola) but I'm sooooooooo tired, I just sit back in that goddess-lap train seat and close my eyes, warm'd by morning sun streaming in windows, I'm by the window, the train's half-empty and everyone's asleep--
and we're rolling fast through pine barrens and industrial wastes--and I close my eyes--and the sun's so violently bright, red on my eyelids, beating my eyelids through the rushing-past pines...strobing, pounding in white and red light relentless on tired but arous'd lids--it's a dreammachine of a world, the flicker of morning sun becomes marbled end papers of obscene baroque books, peacock-feathered infinities of clasping whorls-- a blazing bhagavad movie of sweet violence.
now--I "know" what I'm experiencing has a name and neurological basis, yet--it's magic...intensity of psychedelia = coming forth of Brossard's prophecy: I'm hurtling through the new Herland, I'm a traveler who cannot stay, who pledges his vision to the world's redemption--or his own--
Green cockatoo-feathered morning, meeting my mom at the station and she tells me our favorite restaurant in the Big City must soon close, lost its lease--we eat our last meal there, in the morning so normal and dented in that decaying City, yet so bless'd--sensual bagels and lox...
and I thank my Kali for Beauty--for Musick to Play in the Dark, for that girl at the grocery store, for Gustave Doré, for fall leaves that fall red through blue air, for Lust for Life, for "a dangerous joie de vivre"...for blood...behind eyelids lit by sun...a love letter from the Light that begat life--
"Name and neurological basis" -- the first thing I thought of was synesthesia.
ReplyDeleteI've taken train trips like that: wonderful Twilight Zoney experiences. Been lucky enough once to take a sleeper -- something like 10 hrs from Boston to DC before another 7 hrs in coach to NC. That was a blessed experience given the context: executrix duties for my cousin's massively messed-up estate (long story; 4 years later it's still in probate). House had just been decontaminated. No heat, no water hot or cold (as I said, long story).
Glad you and your mom had a chance to have those bagels and lox -- and all the rest.
oh, dear--you were in some Ingmar Bergman film, there...
ReplyDeleteor Carson McCullers story--
one thing I like about trains is that they take you through the most squalid areas of town (as long as they don't stop!)...but it's such a contrast from the lexus and lattés landscape around airports.
Have you read Van's blog recently? http://elminotaurblanco.blogspot.com/ It's weird but your most recent entries seem to overlap in some weird way ...
ReplyDeletedood, that is too frightening to contemplate!!! but I'm going there now--
ReplyDelete