10,021. RUDIMENTS, pt. 92

RUDIMENTS, pt. 92

Making Cars

(a vision on Ericsson Place)

I can't pretend to be anything other than

what I am, based on these recollections,

which are to me a form of late-life therapy,

I guess. What I could never figure out was

'what was a Man?' Stupidest question in

the world, yes, but. So, I'd walk around

bemused. Me, a new, stupid kid in New

York City, still clutching my 'get me out

of town' bag from Avenel, New Jersey.

I might as well have been Dmitri from

Outer Slobovia. The entire world was

mysterious to me. All of the things

around me. I sought out everything.

Every so often, I'd find something that

would really floor me. Like the time

I found this information about there

once having been in early NY, a celestial

observatory on the corner of Ericsson

Place and Canal Street, sort of right where

now all the cars dump out of the Holland

Tunnel, onto that spidery web of streets

and curves. The building still stands, too.

Although greatly changed. I called this

little adventure (I'd make notes about things

for later writing, 'Eyes Only Heavenward

Locked.' Pretty fair working title). For a

while, whenever there was a clear, full

moon, I'd walk over there at night, just

to look up. One of the most notable and

most exciting things for me about being

in NYC was the night. I really got an

excitement, that first Fall and Winter

there, about the declining light of day

and the approach of night  -  everything

got strangely different, the light and the

reflections, and even the sounds, which

would get absorbed differently, would

'surround' a person differently, it seemed.

It was like you were no longer just 'you;'

you were also your shadow, in the night.

Nothing like it ever.
-
Walking like fierce fire from Barrow
and Bedford Streets down Hudson to
No. Moore (the designation 'No.' on that
street address is completely meaningless.
Somehow over the years, and for whatever
reason, it got added, and now everyone
just assumes it means 'North.' There's
nothing north about it), past the old
industrial rail and fire pit of Ericsson
Place where everything old had been
replaced, was the wide-open entrance
of new place after new place calling
for tenant and buyer, the concrete expanse
of 'for lease' square footage; tenants, the
hand-painted target of convenience on
the new blank walls, and the newly
poured concrete whee the watchman
sat biding his time; the target ) someone
had painted it there, I guessed) in black
and red paint on the wall behind his head.
Construction-site security guards, most
especially the all-night ones, are funny.
They are simply 'assigned' to a location
and usually know little about the location
or the area. It's just 'where' they sit, to
waste time and get paid for it. There's
always construction-site pilferage, and 
things go missing, supplies are stolen, etc.,
and these guys aren't the ones ever to do
anything about it. So, where this guy sat,
all the time, at that entry desk, whether he
knew it or not, this painted target was just
a bit behind his head. Pretty funny. The
other thing was, quite noticeable, back then
all these security guys were weak, dim-witted
white guys, down on their luck a bit, and
just grabbing at any job to stay afloat. Now
all the security guys like that are Blacks or
Hispanic people. It's changed over time.
-
I'm walking along in the pouring rain as
he's looking out with a nod and a smile,
this security guy, and as I passed the newly
constructed corner scene I could see the
black space within and  realized again
how often, over and over, the same things
are done and how and why. I'd never
know. Seen in the daylight, it's one thing.
but seen in the dark there's an entire
other world of activity not known to
us, nor shown. Yes it goes on, and even
as I walked determinedly in the
pouring rain, I alone sought the deference
of others in their outward presence,
at least some sort of human reaction, again
that nod or smile. Memory and image,
no matter - a fool like me, to be a friend
to everyone. I vouch to you that words
are more than sure things to do; so all
I need here write is that I consider
'relying on a lust and a piracy, on a
murder of time and thought, to subsidize
a play for beauty, and in every brick 
and mortar. (That was my 1967
working premise). How weird eas
all this then, already all prescribed
and set-up in my mind. The 'platinum
pallor of blood suiting the illusory world,
with all objects drenched in lunar light.'
(Observatory talk, talking). And near
exact to that is a light of day not here
now (but instead in the rainy darkness
as I rush along). I see rows and rows
of heads dining and they are backlit
by the glow of soft yellow light, and
with spots of such candlelight on
each table's glow they are talking
softly back and forth to one another
as I realize I am silent, but only as
alienation and distance are silent.
That would be it  -  for in what better
warfare than this is there a place to
greet the enemy alone with no voice.
TO WIN BY IGNORING YOUR FOE.
-

So as I walk the endless and blazing nights

I am addressed by the storefronts and 

windows too of the wild wind off the 

nearby river, a 'Spring Street' song of 

all hearts and it makes some scoff at 

truth while others cringe at the hideous 

lapse of sensibility therein [“so I have 

heard and do in part believe it”]. 

In my mental state, still wandering, 

aimless in the rain, the water is rolling 

off my face and beads of it hang from 

my nose with wet head and hair, ears 

cold, clothing soaked, everything wet, 

shoes and outlook. I was a wreck. And 

again I begin: VOICES, the same voices,

hearing tearing into me at once like 

mesmerizing old quotes from the

battle-stations and workplaces old 

and now long gone: “there’s just one 

street and they can shut it off but I’d 

have felt safer there than here, and the 

worst fantasies I guess of the organizers 

would be marchers rolling primitive 

devices of fire and terror down the 

street as they walked, and I - for one  -

have this very relieved sense that 

I am not in charge.” Hearing that, being

spoken to, it was all I could do to stay

right with myself. no one wants a madman

in a jungle-city. And with that, I look up 

and remember the old Ericsson place,

named for him, (he Ericsson Place on

Ericsson Place), and where the crazed 

inventor would look down upon these 

oily streets way back when and see only 

woods and land and fence and until later,

when the rail yards came and supplanted 

all that, he had his EYES ONLY 

HEAVENWARD LOCKED, and 

peering through the rain to the streets 

below I hear him say “glassed in all day 

like this I keep toweling the windows 

dry. Eamon keeps trying to wipe this 

fog away that keeps me blind behind 

glass and unable to see the outside 

world for what it is, and the way things 

become shadows and blunted silhouettes 

of themselves, and birds only become 

blurs as they shake a branch when 

they land or leave or just dash past -

as a flash of cloud snatching at crumbs;

and I know too, Eamon, this will all soon 

be gone, and I find myself like those birds,

wet and weathered each time as I get up 

to the big window to clear it again and 

try to take in what colors are left and 

all the shapes out there, all the living 

bits of matter that stand in their own 

ordinary, uncanny, light until the blurring 

begins again, and I see my own breathing 

as I breath it, but Eamon, I am not the 

man to record all this. Just to watch it, 

the distant observer of another sky, for

I am an inventor and here alone I research 

the heavens : OBSERVATORY LIMIT 

GRAND ASTROLABE : of all my heart,

 alone and silent. What can I do, and what 

is visible to me, really? Alas, instead I shall 

remain here until time for me ends its 

own delight, and you know I DO NOT 

KNOW THESE PEOPLE I DO NOT.” 

-

And with that, the night seemed to lessen 

its darkness and I heard the distant low 

growl of tugboat and ship; something 

rolling by me, and then by Beach Street,

and I’m taken by something  -   some wild,

wicked feeling of timeless cold age,

taking me up, and the ghosts of the 

past wrap around me as it grows totally 

silent and still, and only the one light 

across the horizon seen becomes the 

tear, the great rip in consciousness, 

and it all opens to other worlds. And the 

time and space of other places, those 

which exist concurrent and just beyond 

the membrane of this place and this 

experience, they were suddenly all 

present, and I was viewing all things! 

Into that we, I, we, all are pushed slowly, 

like thick liquid oozing, and time 

bleeds into time, and other things 

dissolve, and the clanging howl of 

the boisterous bell, ringing, resounds 

and echoes down the February quarters 

of the night, and around me, I can well

recall, all this, all this city, coalesces 

and comes back and returns and I 

am silent reading time or silent 

smoking water or silent I am just 

silent watching it all unfold.