Some Recorded Moments in A Floating Life
David Herkt
1] After waking, the newspaper abandoned, reflective now, staring at the
ceiling, recall the night's nearly lost dreams, John wandering through the
rain mysteriously looking for flowers, Jonathan hugging me close with the
Sky City Tower overhead, some light-struck city centre sprawling all around
us, and then from bed hearing the Chemical Brother's Star Guitar out on the
kitchen radio and remembering that whole chapter of the last novel that I
wrote for that song, and I listen to it still pillowed, the song possessing
me with a nostalgia for the past, 'nost' from the Greek 'nostos' a return to
one's home, and 'algia' for pain, the longing to return home that hurts, and
where is my home, and who with, and where is the love?
2] John returning home from work, wanting to chat, to talk about why his
manageress had been encouraging him to apply for a job at a luxury
restaurant in Raratonga, whether one of the waiters was gay or not and why
was he is hospital vomiting blood, wanting to convert me to 1950s modernism
in house design, and being all chatty with me just as I just really want to
finish skim-reading Maurice Sachs' Le Sabbat or whatever the English
translated title is on the version I have in my hands, my finger on the line
where I have paused to listen to John, me even contemplating Raratonga, and
imagining some tropical beach, and wondering if John desires that waiter
because one anecdote reveals that John has closely observed the waiter when
they were changing and me wondering but never asking if the waiter wore
boxers or briefs, and saying no no no about 1950s modernism as exemplified
by the photograph John shows me in that book on Palm Springs, it'll be just
like living in a garage.
3] Jonathan arriving at around 5:40pm for dinner, just he and I, him
arriving, big, with his Eminem beanie and that black jacket I remember from
those first dates that he later said he didn't know were dates but really he
did, and he is sort of blushing when he arrives and we are both happy to see
each other though as always I am more forthcoming than he in the matter of
expressing these emotions, and he is just sweet, still blushing minutes
after he arrives, why are you always online, he begins, the exasperated
automatic questions, and we're talking and he is transferring programs from
CD to my computer, why have you got X-box open, and I'm going don't start,
and he's going bad DH and I'm going not bad DH, and then he's phoning
Bridget when I'm cooking and he's answering the phone from Terry and the TV
news is boring and he's not hungry but he eats it all and for a few minutes
on the sofa its nicest, us sitting there watching some story on 'Sunday'
about a youth suicide and a scoutmaster and the gay sex drug amyl and the
re-enactment of the amyl-sniffing makes us both laugh with reluctant youth
recoiling in horror from the amyl bottle, and its the sofa and him and I and
I'm wondering why things didn't work out better, me with my desire for
permanence in human relations, but I suppose you cannot really complain
about that year in parts, with a number of firsts along the way, and him
still here now, still wanting to be here.
4] Dazzleships breasting the waves and breaking up their lines with
geometrics, and I'm thinking about this while walking through Sandringham,
the naval-ships of the first world war that were painted not in naval-grey
but in big bold greens and whites and blues, in all-over geometric patterns,
to break up their shapes for attackers, according to a prevailing theory of
camouflage, and they were called dazzle-ships, and as well, I'm thinking
about that early 1980s album called Dazzleships by Orchestral Manoeuvres In
The Dark with that snatch from the Czech radio station call on the first
track and the words are trying to shuffle themselves into shape in my head
and there is that part-rhyme between ships and geometrics, and I'm walking
past the Fijian Indian grocery where you can get kava packets amid the yams
and okra, and past the Indian spice shop with the pigeons outside, and past
the gay real estate agents, with 1914 cruisers in bright patterns dazzling
the eye, somewhere on the Atlantic, and me still trying to put them into a
simple couplet and nearly getting it.
5] Freesias, the smell of, the pale colours of the calyxed petals, cream and
yellow, restoring me to a pre-school childhood, for they were planted by the
backsteps, a vivid memory, the scent familiar, the concrete, the porch, the
bed of flowers, the spring sky, the distant range of hills, the big bold
primary shapes of these early recollections, my toys, the red truck,
scattered around, and all of this held somehow in this scent from the
flowers in the vase on the dining table now.
D.
JohnM
<dhe...@ihug.co.nz> writes
>
>2] John returning home from work, wanting to chat, to talk about why his
>manageress had been encouraging him to apply for a job at a luxury
>restaurant in Raratonga, whether one of the waiters was gay or not and why
>was he is hospital vomiting blood, wanting to convert me to 1950s modernism
>in house design, and being all chatty with me just as I just really want to
>finish skim-reading Maurice Sachs' Le Sabbat or whatever the English
>translated title is on the version I have in my hands, my finger on the line
>where I have paused to listen to John, me even contemplating Raratonga, and
>imagining some tropical beach, and wondering if John desires that waiter
>because one anecdote reveals that John has closely observed the waiter when
>they were changing and me wondering but never asking if the waiter wore
>boxers or briefs, and saying no no no about 1950s modernism as exemplified
>by the photograph John shows me in that book on Palm Springs, it'll be just
>like living in a garage.
Huh? What kind of modernism in Palm Springs?
--
JohnM
Author of Brazil: Life, Blood, Soul
http://www.scroll.demon.co.uk/spaver.htm
Mike in Cairns
news:bkl4fm$eoh$1...@lust.ihug.co.nz...
>
> Some Recorded Moments in A Floating Life....
David, you forgot the bit about sending out the email to everyone's email
you found on here about that crappy website of yours.
David Herkt
"Mike in Cairns" <spe...@clothesbigpond.com> wrote in message
news:xsLbb.117502$bo1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> David, you forgot the bit about sending out the email to everyone's email
> you found on here about that crappy website of yours.
I didn't do that yesterday. I think I only use about four addresses from
here, anyway. We've also discovered that we've actually got a very loyal and
increasing readership without PR this week, which has been interesting. And
amid the Viagra ads at least the nztabloid mail was something different....
Oh you like the Viagra ads.... sorry.... Its an easy step to make though,
Mike, you just go to the doctor and say that you can't get it up. It'd work
out cheaper than online.
D.
David Herkt
"JohnM" <jo...@scroll.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:amxY6CAtJib$Ew...@scroll.demon.co.uk...
> Huh? What kind of modernism in Palm Springs?
Palm Springs has some of America's most exemplary Modernist housing. John
likes architects like Richard Neutra etc. The houses of Frank Sinatra and
Bob Hope, for example, are quite amazing. Check out a book, baby!.
D.