Sometimes a Fugue

Sometimes I have the ocean roaring in my ears, in my head, not the intermittent breaks and ebbs of waves on the shore — but only the crashes: crashes, crashes, crashes — on an endless loop for minutes, hours sometimes. A stream of white noise. Vision strained, as if I were only seeing clearly through the spaces in a chain link fence. But much of this is going on without my awareness — and only when it becomes suddenly silent and my vision resolves, refocuses completely, do I become aware of what just happened. Where did those minutes or hours go? What was I doing? Was I here all along in my room, in my car, in my office, this museum — or did I go somewhere else and do other things: unconscionable things, while I was out on the waves?

Then:

Together we will read and disinfect literature and curate arguments about the purity of intention. We will wreck work that is not up to our values of purity. We will be attentive to the hobgoblins of human imperfection we must strive toward purity. Always. We will burn the offending works and strive to drive out the poison mentality. We are the tornados of righteousness. Honor always, gentlemen. Honor always wins. Honor trumps love and understanding. We are the quicksand that will swallow them up and suffocate them. The human mind is a wound that needs triage. We are the arbiters by virtue of human declension. We are the chosen. Let us pray upon this and devise a way to suppress the fallible. We are the weapon. We are the smiting hand of the all-mighty.

Then:

Silence.

What I’m Reading:

I find myself standing each new day
shoulder to shoulder with a sadness that
permeates the walls
turns a key in my head
and plays havoc with the beat of time

— Mariam Meetra / “Shadow”