A Rose Is Born

A Rose Is Born.
Ernest Samuel Llime - Woodhaven

The Bridge.

My feet are killing me. Phil is setting a crazy pace and I feel compelled to keep up with him. The abrasions previously caused by my new sandals are turning into suppurating lesions. My children are so far behind us that I see no trace of them. It’s just Phil, me and this accursed, interminable bridge. There is no hiding from the sun and I am sweating profusely. I find it hard to believe that I got hooked into this crazy endeavor. I have spent nearly 200 dollars that I could not afford, in order to trudge across this infernal bridge and listen to some old, tired and mostly Irish musicians’ attempts at making music. The bridge stretches in front of me, disappearing over the horizon. The East River is winding its vile, polluted waters under us in an obscene attack upon my thirst. Large, passing trucks are frequently shaking this whole unnatural structure with such violence, that for the first time I am feeling some hope; A hope that the next one, will hit the one chord that could reduce the whole blasted thing to a large pile of match sticks. The water may be unspeakably filthy, but underneath it, lies the promise of eternal peace.

At the Site.

Strangely enough, we actually made it to the concert site. Entering the fenced in area, is traumatic experience. People are laying their filthy hands on my person, searching for drugs, or weapons, or something. Other people are yelling uncomforting things into megaphones and nowhere is there heard even one: Welcome to the Guinness Fleadh, enjoy your stay. Dust is moving freely through the air, settling on everything in site. It’s in the food, and in your drink. The prices are exorbitant, hot dogs for three dollars and fruity non-alcoholic concoctions for five. The beer is an astronomical six dollars a pint, and the only two available, are Guinness and Harp; Blasphemy, you can’t even get a proper black and tan. An assortment of Irish lads and lasses is mindlessly mingling inside the compound. A lot of the girls are wearing only short shorts and bras, in a shameless disport of female flesh; hey, take a good look at this old man, look but don’t touch. Most of them are sporting metal accessories in a variety of body parts. There are pierced noses, eyebrows, tongues, navels and for all I know, nipples, labia and clitori. Everybody is sporting a dozen or so rings in each ear and some ears are transversed by little metal rods. I have stumbled upon a nightmare manifested through the collaborative efforts of Dante, Steinbeck and DeSade. If I had my way, I would show these punks some creative piercing; For the girls, needles and thread to stitch their vaginal lips together, so that I will not be the only one deprived and for the boys, a big spike up each ass to wipe that smug look off their collective face.

The Concert.

Some kind of gook is torturing an electric fiddle to death. On further inquiry, I am informed that Bloo, is the band that won the talent search; Talent, what a joke, this music sounds like a collection of trash cans falling over again and again. A lot of idiots in the audience are waving little pieces of blue cloth in support of the idiots on stage. The rest of the day winds down from there. A long string of forgettable Irish faces matched with equally forgettable Irish tunes. A guy whose claim to fame is the fact that Tracy Chapman sang one of his tunes and a Texan who cannot decide whether he is Johnny Cash, or a reincarnation of Hank Williams. Christy Moore, the Grand Old Man of Irish folk, sounds like a Vladimir Vissotsky wanna-be, and Van The Man sounds like what he is: A tired old man who has crossed all the seas a thousand times, fronting a bunch of hired hands. Tomorrow, twelve more hours of torture.

We Meet.

John Prine is no gold mine. An inferior kind of Dylan, that your sister later informs me is said to be hot; Hot? Another joke! Doesn’t anybody know the meaning of the word? This is the same sister who lured you to the concert with promises of men. Your preliminary assessment was almost correct: There is one addition to the couple of thousands of Irish dickheads, who is not; Irish that is. My mind is playing that same old joke on me: It keeps insisting that somewhere out there, I have a mate. That all I have to do is look into her eyes and I will know. I look into your eyes and I see nothing. The rest of you looks equally unpromising. Stringy hair, lipstick stained teeth, bitten nails and a badly maintained and malnutritioned body. A tired, overweight woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. You look into my eyes but you might as well be blind; Can you not see that I will drag you down into the depth of my despair? And yet, you kiss me. For the rest of the night, we cling to each other like two drowning souls desperately hoping that the other, may know how to swim.

Time Passages.

I should have my head examined. In the two weeks since I have met you, we have managed to speak on the phone every day. Asking for your number was quite daring of me, but actually calling you, was totally out of character. And the things we are discussing? Like living together; Are you totally off you rocker? I must be mad to be on the train on my way to you. I just put twelve tense hours into the annual Rollover/Crossover process and I am bushed. How dare I contemplate having sex with you? The day after your son’s birthday, I noticed something growing on my face, I hope it is not skin cancer. And the birthday? I don’t really want to talk about that. The only good thing I can say about it is that at least I did not have to deal with your entire family since nobody showed up. Everyone makes a mistake now and than, but this will be my last one; When I get back to New York, I will go and visit the Bridge of my Damnation for a last time.

The Sex - TO BE

I cannot get it up. It’s not surprising, I am tired, nervous, irritable and nothing seems to work. My attempt at penetrating you with a semi-inflated member was doomed from the start. The oral stimulation is useless; it never worked for me. My feeble attempts at otherwise pleasing you have probably left you more in need of a cold shower than ever before. I don’t know what I had expected of you; Redemption, elation, absolution, solution or maybe just your healing power. Please forgive me, I am exhausted. I will sleep a little and when I awake, I will disappear from your life just like a bad dream does after you awaken.

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O Glorious day! All my fears, all my doubts, all my sorrows, all my troubles; gone, gone for now and gone forever. I am awake and you are still by my side. I throw aside the sheet and gaze upon your body and it is as if a veil has been lifted from my eyes. This is the body of a Goddess, a body worthy of Rubens’ palette, of Renoir’s brushes. But they are not here, I am.

I brush my lips across your nipples and they try shamelessly to poke me in the eye.

I run my palms over your skin and you try not to cry.

I move my hand a little lower,

The fountain of life is overflowing.

No longer is there need to wait,

I enter through the Mystic Gate.

Some time later, we are at rest. I am still on top and inside you but for now, the passions have been curbed. I look into your eyes, and now I know.

The Sex – IT WAS

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Time Passages.

So much venom; but it is all gone now. I am sitting in front of my computer rethinking everything. That man who wrote the previous couple of pages could not have possibly been me. I have to admit that it is all fairly well written and that under certain circumstances, I could have become that bitter, cranky, half-crazed human animal. I am of half a mind to destroy the shameful document, but think it might be better to keep it as a sort of cautionary tale to myself. I have known you for two weeks and for two weeks I have been as nervous as a school boy in love for the first time. Chris Isaak is wailing his love from my CD player and I share his sentiments exactly, when he sings of “Two Hearts.” For two weeks, my days felt incomplete until I got to see or talk to you. When you were talking about living together, I was thinking: What the Hell are we waiting for? Every moment we spend apart is lost and useless. When the train carrying me to meet you was crawling at a snail’s pace, I could only wish I could fly and bugger the clichés. Work could not be any further from my mind. Annual processing is something that happens every year, and I am sure we will enter fiscal 1998 sooner or later.

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