Sunday, June 13, 2010

torn flag



The profiles of the people on the beach
wrapped in skin-licking bikinis and sarongs with Indonesian patterns
and the man with his sunglasses on, reading the book but actually staring at breasts through tented lenses. They chat, sitting under pine trees that reach close to the beach.

Pine trees on a beach?

They stand close enough to breathe and drink the salt air and absorb life through the tourists' eyes. These trees who drape the beach with their tall fixtures already know where they are in life but look to the human tourists as a sort of amusement.

To the left, the bird calls his friend, and to the right, the engine roars and the race along the beach has rolled up tunnels of energy. It's like the energy contained in human beings; it is constant in its roaring and eating of carrion.

Nothing will be satisfied in this way, yet the ocean cannot retire and blame the ageing process.

The young man carries a pint of piss-colored beer and walks out into the sun. He stretches his head upward and moves his shoulders back, the muscles in his back accentuating his skeleton. Enough of the sun and turn position to lying down on the hotel-provided gray towel, eyes closed and facial expression appears as though everything is in its proper place, 2-day beard growth included. He rests his arm on the plastic beach chair's armrest.

Around his right wrist is a handmade bracelet, likely bought on a street corner in Bangkok. He wears waterproof gray shorts, nearly knee-length. Some would consider him handsome, athletic. He appears to be in a slumber and is perhaps contemplating, or just resting, thinking of emptiness.

Those who spend hours in deep sleep become a part of the world of slumber.

The torn flag, colors red, white and blue, wraps tightly around its pole, just as the domineering husband wraps his fingers 'round his wife's neck.

The holes and the torn bits and the swells in the heart that subside only with time and yet this process still does not lead to the cure. A man in his navy-blue Speedo and plastic sandals walks underneath the torn illusion of a nation. He does not know where he goes.

At the feet of the slumbering young man, someone is selling patterned sarongs.

My toes look like twigs, twisted to the sand, and the black nail polish wares down. It looks grotesque.

The tailor, with his shop on the beach, perhaps he is Indian or from Myanmar, though his nationality to me is uncertain, kicks around a flat soccerball, barefoot, across the sand, under the shade of the pine trees. The sand is prickly with Durian-shaped mini pinecones, and a tiny ant is attacking my toe. He likely does not approve of my toenail polish.

The husband and wife talk quietly to one another, while the wife dreams to herself of being a wandering yogi. The ageing tourists, their fronts pushed down by gravity, waddle past. They do not harm the surface.

The old British lady bends down with toil to reach the hose to water down her sandy feet. She wears a straw sunhat surrounded by a black ribbon. She walks toward her hotel room, followed by her husband of many years.

At the water hose, two Asians appear, then disappear. One wears a white Polo Speedo, 'Polo' in white across the butt cheeks. The other wears long swim shorts and drapes a blue towel across his shoulders. They are gone.

The Thai man in his shorts, t-shirt, and bare feet reads with interest a book in the shade of the awning of the tailor's shop. He looks like he could be a runner with his drawn-out muscles. He turns the page.

The Indian tailor kicks the soccerball against the pine tree and the young man who was lying down stands up again and relocated. I look at the Indian tailor. He looks back at me.

The puppy to the right emerges from his sleeping spot under the tree. He has a jinglebell collar round his neck and sits upright, gazing at the Indian tailor with the soccerball who calls to Ricky and the dog follows his voice.

The universe melts into another, in tandem with the heat of the afternoon and the roar of the curvaceous sea. I am in a previous universe, walking alone through Primrose Hill. It is May and I walk through the path that's centered between two bare fields in the middle of the city, surrounding myself in existential angst.

This universe is the underworld, seeking redemption. We await mornings of coffee cups and afternoons of cups of tea and sultano cookies, here.

No comments:

Post a Comment