Tuesday, January 29, 2013

the watery world is filled with water men, the fishes drown, the frogs lay upon their backs, floating like pebbles, these days of rain  and wind, the elemental forces churn up the voodoo like some cosmic wind blowing through, the opposite of a solar flare, a lunar drainpipe. animals look to me for shelter, the lizard kings under rock reminisce about the recent heat wave, the days when they basked upon rock, the colours run out of the day, pastels diluted to transparency. i sit watching it all, that river is no longer flowing down river, it's just flowing upwards defying gravity, it rises, as i ponder the eventuality of it washing me away, flooding mission control with eels and beasties.
i trudge out there, feeding fish, feeding pan the hound who looks as depressed as i feel by this deluge. 
he looks at me, 'what the fuck, two days ago i was laying flat out on the deck soaking up the sun, to hot to move.'
'yeah, tell me about it pan,' i say.
he's huddled in his kennel, pop's out to munch on his food and hops back in.
i gotta drive down the highway, 120k's slowed down to 80, manoeuvring the bad drivers, off which there are plenty, weaving, speeding, no headlights, speeders, you see it all in these conditions, i was one once a speed demon inhabited my soul so i don't judge these fools, i just hope they don't kill me.
the water don't let up, i feel like i'm driving underwater, thought bubbles keep me afloat, i am going slower than normal, listening to a radio show where people are calling in reports that sydney will be hit in the evening.
so we have not been hit yet? what is this then? it feels like we been hit already but the experts say the cyclone will travel down in the evening and wipe out the city, i'm driving away but it's going to hunt me down, this is my curse, the rain, how i loath rain like this, pouring down out from the black heavens. i don't want a rainy day woman, i want a sunshine girl but today i would settle for a rainbow lady.
i shift through the afternoon, doing my duty, by evening the rain starts falling heavy, pounding on the buildings, we watch the news, queensland is flooded badly, homes washed away, masses of foam is eating towns and the city is turning into a modern venice  as the waterways spill over, as the rivers rise. the ocean hammers away, wind howls and the water flies everywhere.
deluge days, flooding muddy dirty water running through kitchens, families displaced, helicopters swoop down plucking and air lifting folk from rooftops, communities band together, telecommunications down, lights out, civilization meets nature, yeah you tell me who's been her longer, who's outlasted the other, nature don't care about your failed love affair, it don't wanna hear about debt or the stock market crash, it don't care about that new film in 3d or the mona lisa, nature don't really consider constructs because it's the one true reality of this realm, it's the leveller, rich man poor man, beggar man thief bank manager or poet this force can't distinguish between those kinda ideas, it just does what it does, shapes and forms, like the potters hands, restructures, a new starting point, some kinda weird turbulence, as we run, drive, fly and take cover, the random hands of the universe tweaking creation, with what appears like destruction, fire rain, earth moving, heat, water, cold. this is the real forces of nature, elements of material existence  the force that began creation and may just end it as we know it. nature is fast when it moves, like geology. 
i hide away in a shelter, the rain pounds down, the tv gives us news of catastrophic devastation, politicians say things to cameras and try and act in control. news crews push into the forbidden zones, channels compete for disaster porn. yeah call me old fashioned but i rather watch porn than human tragedy on loop.
people burn in fires, it kills.
people drown in water, it kills.
it has no moral condition, it's effects are tragic and painful but as a force one cannot say, the storm was evil, or it was psychotic or malevolent, it is what it is, natural, which is why sometimes we need reminding, about who really is in control. 
after writing this i save it as a draft, someone enters my office and says i can go home. my shift is over but the rain is falling heavier now and they have just announced that it's going to get worse. 
i ran for the car, getting organised for the journey ahead, into the storm, we should meet halfway.
the highway is horrendous, the cars are blown from lane to lane, they slide as though on ice, the wind howls along, rocks have fallen onto some of the lanes, i swerve out the way of a fallen tree that has been uprooted and thrown down onto the slow lane, jesus i'm now moving underwater, waves of water just hitting my windscreen, no other cars on the road when i get off the highway i'm driving down winding country roads, trees almost bending over and plenty of flooded roads to negotiate, fortunately my car is an 4wd and has the ability to manage challenging conditions better than other cars, so eventually when i do get home safe and sound i can relax, but not before i notice the branches of my palm trees fallen over the pond. big clean up as soon as it stops raining, i turn the key, oh it's good to be home, it's safer than larking around out there in this wild wind, i'm not a waterboy man, i'm a tropical sun worshipper who likes snoozing in a hammock, drinking coconut drinks and swanning around in a sarong half naked with a dark skinned nymph from a tribe born to pleasure. the cold winds howl me down and tease me, the ice from the frozen wastelands don't work for me, the rain, the rain, blah it stops me in my tracks, kills my motivation to get anything done, it's awkward, got a weird smell, gets into my old bones and makes me contract. i'm an expansive old spirit, like steam.
the rain swirls around my house, maybe the wind shakes the foundations away, lifts it up in it's swirling surge and just like an inverted dorothy and toto old captain mission and pan are transported from oz to somewhere else, a place called 'is, cans is.'
pan looks at me, we are standing in a white space, everything is just white, the ground, the sky, the whole landscape, white, 'where are we pan?'
'we are in blank canvass.'

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