Solastalgia
Crossing the Old Country by rail, and the summers get surreal.
So much has changed since I was last there that I’m not sure how to feel.
“Flat below the waves of the North Sea, did you know there’s a drowned society?” I say.
Solastalgia won’t get me anywhere, but I think the engines may.
Sometimes you’re on the platform and sometimes you’re on the train. Sometimes it’s farewell for the last time, so back to my old home. Come back to me. Let the land rise up from the sea. Please.
Superbloom
Grey over rust over gold: everything fell through, been so long since I saw you, and it feels like we've up and used everything on offer.
Today, squalls rolling through, blues on the news, we don’t behave like we used to and we're so far from what we sought for, and it's been so long since I longed for something as much as I long for this.
It's been so long since I longed for something as much as I long for this.
These days I’m sitting outside cafes apart from everyone and everything, and this is by design.
Is it bad that the world is collapsing when I am just entering the prime of my life and it's been so long since I longed for something as much as I long for this?
It's been so long since I longed for something as much as I long for this.
Dance your way along tempest seas. The water churns as the land ages. I cross bridges for you. I fly the teeth of the wind for you, share my wings with you over rising seas with you if that's what I must do.
So lay down your burdens, your dust and your doom, for after the drought the storm breaks, and then the superbloom, violet over gold over green.
Most days, everything is good enough and I'm good enough for, but every so often a day comes when it's not good enough and I know I need more.
I need more, because it's been so long since I longed for something as much as I long for this.
It's been so long since I longed for something as much as I long for this.
There’s Nothing Wrong With Clouds, Except
This is an experiment.
The sky is a ring of thunder and lightning in the heat of a summer that gets hotter every year.
It’s 95 and the dragonflies are the size of songbirds, and the anvil brings a question: is there a future here?
‘Cos of all the possible future landscapes, we can imagine only the worst ones.
We know the answers but we don’t know the questions.
Lately here come the clouds, bearing their moody bruises down, but there’s nothing wrong with clouds except you can’t see through them.
What will tomorrow’s clouds do?
How will they cast their shadows across the land?
Will they reflect or will they absorb?
We have scenarios. They are disturbing.
I see a trap closing on the grave of grasslands giving way, and eyes turn to the skies as people are praying for rain, and raiders and marauding bands cross the dusty hinterlands as the clouds are pulling away.
That’s what the models say.
Lately here come the clouds, bearing their moody bruises down, but there’s nothing wrong with clouds except you can’t see through them.
Remind me to be grateful for the rain, ‘cos of all the possible future landscapes, we can imagine only the worst ones.
We know the answers but we don’t know the questions.
Many of my friends have been fleeing the coast with their children these days I’ve been noticing, searching for a refuge to raise their daughters and sons, but of all the possible future landscapes, can we avoid the worst ones?
[Head in a cloud head in a cloud head in a cloud and the racetrack going around.
Head in a fog, head in a fog, chemical smog, and they grey is pressing down.]
Patterns in the Air
Distant castles across the park: somebody’s else’s building is always going up to mixed reviews, shaping the skyline, sundown on blue. And sometimes I find that I stare as our architects are drawing patterns in the air.
I would go to you, but it’s amazing how oceans can get in the way, even at this stage, and, in the modern age, every farewell flight’s a blow to the atmosphere, and I adopt a middle distance stare as our scientists are drawing patterns in the air.
I would go to you, but it’s amazing how emotions can get in the way, even at this stage, and at a certain age things are too complex to explain, but once we were young, and it seemed the future was right there. We were drawing patterns in the air.
Environments
One must adapt sometimes to new environments entirely, but, if you grow with those, you can make the best of them all the same.
And if you’ve been hurt along the way, sometimes the damages are permanent, but, if you grow with those, you can be magnificent all the same.
And if your line dies out with you, you will have lived all the same. Life is the sum of all of us, and it will go on and on and on and on again.
One must adapt sometimes to new environments entirely, and they might change you.
The Land Is Changing
Up and saw a bright path, dappled patterns ringing the kills, buildings rising to a crescendo, holes in the skyline all filled.
We were pointing at the clouds, gawking at the museums.
Tomorrow was bright and it was ours.
And now the land is changing under us. The world has been transformed, and the world of our youth is gone. The world of our youth is gone.
I see on TV the canyons of Fifth Avenue are emptied of people, surreal and serene save the squad car and the ambulance wailing away, nature near reveling in our sudden absence.
Home with a room, oh what a view of silent tower blocks powerwashed by spring rain as the air changes outside where the young and the aged are quarantined each afternoon.
And now the land is changing under us. The world has been transformed, and the world of our youth is gone. The world of our youth is gone.
One of these windows is a home for you. One of these windows is a home for you.
And now the land is changing under us. The world has been transformed, and the world of our youth is gone. The world of our youth is gone.
One of these windows is a home for you.
Exactly the Same Way
Hey there, you were born in the wrong age.
I can tell because I feel the same.
Isn't that the way of things, feeling an affinity with the old tales as if the landscape will never die?
This is the refuge of the wayward wanderer. This is another world that could have been.
And I was too slow to start, and when I did I didn't speak my heart, then I stayed when I should have gone, and when I talked I talked too long, and I fail in exactly the same way, and I fail in exactly the same way.
Forgive me, forgive me please.
So then they came with fire, sweeping across the lost continent, driving the beasts before them, and more of them came onward, history bleached by the steady sun on the oldest stones, the dryest bones, and, for those who stayed, a fragile line betrayed.
This is the refuge of the wayward wanderer. This is another world that could have been.
And I was too slow to start, and when I did I didn't speak my heart, then I stayed when I should have gone, and when I talked I talked too long, and I fail in exactly the same way, and I fail in exactly the same way.
Forgive me, forgive me please.
The Sky Must Be Destroyed
Esteemed colleagues,
You were once lovers riding in rail cars through naked mountains shed of their ancient layers of glaciers and greyed by the dappled sun.
Esteemed colleagues,
They say you’re on your way to Spain to negotiate the terms again and get the deal done, and, with every gain, a loss, for to save the stone and the wood and the land, the sky must be destroyed, and to save the labors of human hand, the sky must be destroyed.
Everything ends at last.
I find I’m afraid of human faces lately. What are their intentions? What are they going to do? The water looks like mountains. The water looks like dunes, and there’s too many prophets and rocketeers aiming for distant moons, and, with every gain, a loss, for to save the stone and the wood and the land, the sky must be destroyed, and to save the labors of the human hand, the sky must be destroyed.
Open up now. [Defile the sky.]
Esteemed colleagues,
You were once lovers, but everything ends at last, for to save the stone and the wood and the land, the sky must be destroyed, and to save the labors of human hand, the sky must be destroyed.
Everything ends at last.
Eyes Like the Ocean
Do you remember when there were animals here, and people walked on the blue-green earth renewed year after year?
Once there were gods and demons, now only roads between interchangeable cities of sunlight and moonlight, of measures and loads.
She’s got eyes like the ocean.
Driven across a dry land of bone white hues. When paradise burned, it was all on the news: days of fire begat by days of rain. Grasses reach for the sun, bleach in the sun, and are burned again all down the line.
She’s got eyes like the ocean.
Maybe this once, improbably, those winding paths we could never understand could wind us off the wrong coast of this dying land where all our friends come off as complete strangers. So tell me, are we even allowed to feel this alive as the world changes all down the line?
She’s got eyes like the ocean.
Can we rise like the ocean? Maybe this once, improbably.
Tomorrow’s Sky
Tonight’s sky, errant child of air and light's pollution, a curtain of orange dark pulled over my nocturnal doings.
I should be home with the ones I love, not pacing the city, ruing all the wrong turns made in the maze.
There are so many ways to take away the future and leaving nothing in its place, but I know that we can be better.
Sometimes I stand alone arms akimbo looking out my window. At night the lights and sirens are firing, like butterflies subside, myriad, so sad, so lonely, pulsing, coursing, the veins, the heart, the arteries only, and when I take that evening ride over the ocean's very edge, that mighty sea is barely registered by me, only its beauty ahead of tomorrow's sky, and I know that we can be better, and build.