Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Writing from the waiting room

The Queen of the Night enters through the screen door and comes face to face with the face of a dog. The dog slips back into the room the Queen of the Night does not forget her mission and continues to enter into our consciousness one way or another usually by the nasal passages. She slips into the passage in the middle of the face and penetrates into the brain of her subjects. There she fills them with pleasurable sensations and long lost memories and deeper feelings that they may well prefer to forget of distant continents where the rules were different and everything was much less down to earth. Yes she has otherworldly schemes and dreams. She only makes her presence felt in the night in the dark in the slippery time of day when it is hard to see the things of the day-to-day. She operates on the senses when some of them are asleep and at rest and then she brings out her jewel box of memories hidden in a fragrance so dense and intoxicating you forget that once you were human and think maybe you have died and gone to heaven. Briefly. On the hint of a waft of air nothing solid to go on just a passing wisp of air that reminds you of things long buried and juicy. You think you might put on a robe and go down into the bazaar of the night and sit around an open fire and have a glass of chai and sit on the ground sipping in the glow of the fire with travellers all around you. You might stay there for a while but then you might stay there all night with the sparks of the fire dancing into the forest of the night wrapped up in a silken shawl given to you from a fellow traveller who sold everything to stay in this wonderland. But suddenly he also was gone like so many who were there one day and then you never see them again until maybe they turn up on a ranch in Oregon five years later and hand you a photograph and you were wearing that same shawl. They remember the colour of your eyes and the shape of your belly. They remember kisses and try to retrieve them but other strangers mouths are moving over yours now so you smile instead and take the photograph anyway.

1 comment:

Satima Flavell said...

Not being a literary writer I'm none too sure what that piece is about, but it has an evocative vibe to it. Are you writing much in your new home? How fortunate that you got an inheritance right now, when rents are soaring. That's why I had to leave Perth. However, I'll be here a lot this year so we should try to get together some time!