My Left is Underhanded, Act 3

Published 01.10. 2012

My Left is Underhanded, Act 3

Silence Rules
Or
Our voids and collisions

..

Saw at least 3 cascading
Flashes of lightning in the distance
That raked the sky silently to the east
Must be truly distant
For not a sound
To reach
Me
Here

Fire in the sky, fingers rake the eyes and night together. The image is burned into us both. There is anger on the air that strikes with amplified pressure. All is gathered, alive and aware in the grip of the demiurge who bears witness from where Ursa Major and Ursa Minor stand in relation to Polaris. All is violence, breath and light. All to the delight of this monster. We perched upon his palm and he upon his throne.

In order to achieve a reasonable disclosure, certain sacrifices are essential. I have to accept casualties. It takes commitment to the craft. Behold, by these finite words alone, to be interpreted. This is to be expected. Laugh. :) Watch the right hand moving.

..

Cool,

Grey I go
But
Ever the more
Clever I
Grow
Sun sets to
Golden
Hue

The song begins how it ends. Silence rules. Music enters the room. It growls low, whinnies high. It is hungry to take flight. Slow burns as each pulse is crowded with force. Its coals smolder in the cold chamber I hold at the center, waiting for wind.

The pressure intensity of its magnitude falls into timorous vibrating lulls of exquisite sacrosanct tones. I ache with thought. It speaks to me. I indulge the joy agony of the gods that are dying in every exhaled breath, rising again with inhalation. These two inseparable from each other. Oh my sisters and brothers.

Necessity and invention. Music of the spheres. You and I. Our voids and collisions.

..

Jason and I are riding out for some pot up the main avenue to this guy's house.

We are in left lane, road divided on left side by big water run offs, murky channels a dozen feet below. Steel rails to the left, right lane another car apace, right beside us. Another in front. A car length between.

We are high, laughing, best friends on way to dickhole's house to score our pot. Car driving right in front of us swiftly changes lanes, screeching directly in front of the car beside me. Why the driver in front of me changed lanes so suddenly? Car coming WRONG WAY FULL SPEED AHEAD 50 miles per hour to kill anything it meets! He steps right and the oncoming vehicle is almost on top of me.

Here is how collision works. Constant speed of both objects is equal. Both forces suddenly stop and crash at 50 miles per hour. No seatbelts, most likely Jason and I are dead in one instant.

..

Quiet,

Shed your garments as you slip into the waters. Full moon in a blazing starry sky, is all mirrored absolute and utterly on the still surface with ultraviolence abiding beneath.

All is screaming silence. Stars twinkle. Planets bask in their glow. Gods burning in their orbits. These fiery cyclopean eyes. Each a constellation of these colossal beings that shed a constant aura of light.

You mirror them also, returning to submerge in these elemental forces, each burning also in solitude. We regard each other. Consider each other’s natures. And ours in relation.

The depth of waters, your brilliance is the ever rebirthing flame. You are the equal of every star you see tonight. I see you stepping into still waters, the mirrored moon ripples. Slow distortions which gain in momentum. Hips slide beneath the surface and you are submerged. There is no sound or light. Find your peace and breath again. These all the sweeter in regaining.

Peace, breath and light.

..

Car beside me steps on brakes with BOTH FEET. His fear just goes STOOOOOP, you know.

In one instant I thought into my RIGHT hand and turned the wheel RIGHT
RIGHT?
RIGHT!
Right into the space made by the guy who was beside me not a second ago, now behind me in the grip of his fear stop. Guy who was going the same way in front of me and blocking view of the oncoming devil commanded wrong way car got him to stop when he stepped to the right with no warning to him or me because HELL what did he know before all three of us knew, in the middle of the night, you know?

So anyways, my instincts ROARED TURN LEFT!!!!! STOP!!!!!
But left would have been into the rail, we still collide. We still die.

Dead stop means the drunken asshole hits us maybe half as hard. Maybe drunk isn’t dead but me and Jason, stupid high and no seat belts, we will be hurt from this adventure.

I think in 1 split second, two wrong decisions. One right one. I don’t panic. I force the dumb right hand to turn right, so close to a head on impact that the collision was palpable. Bright lights converging, silence, the moment stretches in awe of imminent force dispersion and exchange of great impact. Instead we step right and don’t even slow down. Half a block or less, I return to the left lane.

I think about it in reflection. Each car moving together in rhythm. Doing their part by moving in unison. We are silent for long minutes. I think of electrons orbiting a nucleus, machine pistons, living organisms and planets rotating about their own individual axis. How perfect and absurd that this should all occur as it does.

Silence rules
…
...
,,,
......

Did that just happen?
I asked Jason
He equally shocked but unafraid, answers
Yes, it did

We continue on. Do our song and dance. Head home. Neither mentioning it again.

..

Separate,

Blue skied evening, muted with a chalky gray pallor. The silence is sacrosanct and stillness pervades another hot day of winter as I lie in bed, gazing up and out.

The evening is freakishly humid and still, hanging about my face, neck and shoulders with a cloying persistence. Big clouds fill the sky overhead, a colossal mass of vapors illuminated by the full moon. So much light to see you by. All things are there, alive and aware on a warm winter night.

Mostly scrubby pines around. Pine cones all over the footpath, many doubled over in fetal position, the way living things do. Trees are giving parked cars a bath of aqueous detritus. I look into myself.

I had this photo for a long time, online and a physical copy. My gf took it.

Me sitting on the left side of the couch, looking subdued in a gentle and thoughtful way.

David in the center, a confident man affecting a naturally commanding posture, beer in one hand, evenly raised middle finger on the other hand displayed, flat expression.

Burt on the right screaming with red purple complexion, captured in all his constantly exploding glory. Audacity and chaos crackling about his distended face of fury.

Frank behind the couch, eyes of predatory intensity, cigarette in mouth, broad shoulders slightly arched, one hand pointing at the camera with his dark jedi insanity. His mind-fist face saying, I will you to be with me and fulfill all my desires obediently.

Things would have gone to shit anyways, all of us such no goodniks, after our particular fashion. That is how I justify it. A precognition of imminent collision. The warning signs and fissures appearing. The light rises. A stillness comes over my heart. I step to the right. Act without warning.

Sky is grey and pregnant with clouds. Distant thunder crackles in the southeast. Rain disperses in sporadic bands. Sound of children's excited voices from without. I lie in bed, in the stillness and gloom. A quiet heart in a quiet room.

..

Alone,

I shove, scoot or kick most of the debris that litters the sidewalk, any given time I am out and back that way. Just about anything can turn an ankle with an unlucky misstep. I pull down and toss low hanging branches, as well. Avoid eye pokes or if it's raining on my next pass, getting doused. Makes me the unofficial warden of that mile or so.

Out for a walk. I who exile myself. Gather my thoughts like stones of some particular interest along a roadside found. Run afoul of you in the cloak room, where I am an uncovered peg. ;) Other times, hold my cloak in respectful silence.

All coming together as if it was meant to. The few sublime moments, many somber, some with love and wonder and those of pain, from which we all suffer, oh my sisters and brothers.

It seems I am someone different to each I met and left by the wayside. And those who left me. Each carrying off a hastily drawn portrait of the other.

..

I would not linger here, as a specter
As a spider upon the wall
In our divided perceptions of the room
Where I am blind in one eye
And you are sometimes deaf
As we rotate, it seems
Sometimes the opposite ;)

I would depart upon the breath
Of my nostrils
Or bury myself
In the cold chamber
Where my coals
Dim to a core
Smolder

Fair number of cars for this late hour. Headlights throw my separate shadows across the asphalt and pavement, distorted and angular watchtowers that for a moment mark my passage. Foreboding in their grim countenance. Unfamiliar in the brevity of their visits.

Light and shadow are violent in their bouts, sudden emergence and departures, reminds me of the paroxysms I sometimes suffer. Stretch their limbs across the ground, becoming distorted versions of self.

In order to achieve a reasonable disclosure, certain sacrifices are essential. I have to accept casualties. Consequences. It takes commitment to the craft. Behold, by these finite words alone, to be coined. Confined to a convenient cage of definition. This is to be expected. Laugh. :) There is a span of moments where lightning is silent and thunder is invisible. Between the strike and clap. Watch the right hand moving. My left is underhanded.

The night air is close. I recite Ulysses in my head, the heart answers. Silence rules. The song ends how it begins.

Cool. Quiet. Separate. Alone. Waiting for wind.
..

My Left is Underhanded, Act 3
By Daniel Christensen
Writing as
Daniel Shadow Loveless

Copyright © 2012 by Daniel Christensen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.