the Valley and the Fortress
The Poet is gone... location hunting. Took off in one of those antique bi-planes, a Breguet 14, from the highway outside of town. Quite a romantic scene. Dawn light and sweet shadows. Was a camel train moving out, going east into the vega, moving a mysterious cargo.
Plane banked out to sea, then passed by about three hundred feet above the sea wall, going south. Don't ask me why, but my feeling is he won't be coming back.
Kate's going too... riding with Bolero this time. She's adopted the local custom of covering her head and face when stepping out in public.
Paul... my young Latino amigo. Seems he made an impression on Kyprios, so he's going for a cruise... deep space, way out there someplace. Got his flamenco guitar with him, says he's the new me. Mexico. I see him as a wandering mariachi in the lost cities of the cat jungles... and the hip cantinas of the Camino Real.
Funny how well you can get to know some people in just one week. Even when you know nothing about them, really....
Like, Naomi. Exactly the way you see her in Vogue... that dangerous allure... primitive, yet sophisticated. No matter what way you dress her, she's naked. No matter what chains, what tattoos, what rings, what beads... what hidden codes.
Well I'm packed and ready to go. Got a black Texas Strat waitin' for me... little girl too. My daughter, my muse.
A closing shot, though, for this movie. Camera is already moving into position. An overhead, God's eye so to speak... 600,000 feet... a hundred miles in the sky the satellite is tracking my soul, my magic. Should I go to the roof, or the wall? No matter. The light is perfect, so clear you can see through the walls of Obo.
The statues, silhouettes waiting to be occupied.
Hard to get off this bed, unload the shadows from my unshaven face. I hear him out there, shuffling on the stone stairs... in the hall... outside the door... hissing, grunting, clawing at the door like a 3rd rate horror actor. The dumb mutant. Pretending to be something he isn't. Now he wants to be in the movies, move to L.A.
Why not? As the Poet says, Death is always welcome in the Valley and the Fortress.
© Lawrence Russell March 10 '04
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