OCEAN
PENUMBRA
ROSALYN STEVENSON
ROSALYN STEVENSON
1.
It is midnight. Bonfires on the beach, six, seven, ten of them. Orange flames against the sky.
The Pangaean’s are dancing with twigs in their hair at the edge of the sea, at the edge of the world. The look in their eyes is dark and telling as ancient runes encrypted with DNA super script, the wisdom of the ages in humanities blood spiraling to brightness in the star patterned iris of a Pangaean’s eye.
It is midnight. Bonfires on the beach, six, seven, ten of them. Orange flames against the sky.
The Pangaean’s are dancing with twigs in their hair at the edge of the sea, at the edge of the world. The look in their eyes is dark and telling as ancient runes encrypted with DNA super script, the wisdom of the ages in humanities blood spiraling to brightness in the star patterned iris of a Pangaean’s eye.
Bartering for bread, a bottle passed around, communal life for an
autonomous moment, unnamed, yet thriving here. Beer is passed freely from hand
to hand, herbal smokes, too. No names are asked nor given. The great Om of the
ocean vibrates the horizon and the air.
Some stand and stare into the darkness at the edge of the world.
Some look up into the welken of heaven, into her diamond-starred face. Some
laugh, fire lit faces orange with glow.
I turn to one of the revelers, a tall man with flowers tangled
through the wreath of twigs upon his brow. “Who are these people? Why are they
camping and dancing here?” I ask him.
He looks at me with a glinting smile, his eyes reflecting orange
sparks from the bonfires. He begins to chant in a vibrating, sing song voice:
“They
have run from Middle America with it’s suffocating lack of imagination,
Where
creative living is for dropouts only, and only at the edge of the sea, at the
edge of the world, near the placental waters of the sea,
Where
alcoholism, despair, pharmaceutical fixes mask the repressed desires of angels
fallen darkly,
Where
secret sexual liaisons squirm under hypocritical suits,
Where
climbing to the top of middle management dung heap is the only dream,
Where
pollution is the effluvium of false pride,
Where
television holocaust, murder, war is entertainment.
“We
should put them all in jail” the rant of those caged in over lit living rooms,
Cursing
the welfare poor, no eye to cause.
Where
drunkards line the skid row streets soaked in filth and hopelessness while
divine and playful Pan goes dancing unseen, even vilified. Beautiful Dionysius
an outcast,
Where
priestesses are sullied into porno queens,
Where
super heroes cartoon the afternoon of children not extolled to honor their own
inherent potential,
Where
purpose is an underground term,
Where
self realization is an occult concept, a remedy few will ever strive for,
Where
the rich and famous lounge in ritual hotels, lording it over the naked nymph
and dancing satyr, the Pangaeans at the edge of the sea, at the edge of the
world,
Where
fat cat corporations destroy the rainforest in the name of beef burgers, toxic
anyway, and tainted,
Climate
changed, jeopardized, no truths spoken, denial a profiteers best friend.
Billboards,
radios, tv’s pronouncing one not good enough, pushing product into brain mind,
until a day without buying is sensed as a guilty thing, a day just sitting
makes one nervous...a loser.
Chem
trails, police action. Topless clubs, strip joints, thousands of William
Burroughs’ super sonic dummies driving Piscean metal petroleum boxes along
landscape stripping freeways from one franchise fake town to another, identical
in every way, same franchises own it all, produce the same worthless products,
fake fast food, to a bewildered populace who have come for the climate.
Radiation
from melt down nuclear reactor wafts around the world causing diarrhea and
rash.
Singing
not allowed in workday relations. Tattling on co-workers encouraged.
Nowhere
in Middle America for dancing fauns.
Into
the world soft flesh full of wonder and hopes, into corporate America’s
impersonal cold face, impoverished of joy.
Alienation
a national characteristic, disenfranchised, plastic name badge.
The
mighty mainstream looks into a mirror and sees nothing.”
As he speaks the bonfires grow higher, hotter, sparks fly and
swirl in the air around us. The ocean waves roar as they roll up onto the sand.
Somewhere a drum, flute, guitar. The ancient dancing begins
again.
Pangaeans visible only by bonfire at midnight, dance at the edge
of the world with twigs in their hair. Eyes gone dark as the Universe,
Starseeds retrieving what is left of soul in a shipwrecked American dream.
And I beside a bonfire sit, in gravid recognition, weaving a
circlet of twigs to place upon my own brow.
©Rosalyn Stevenson (All rights reserved)
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