July: northern latitudes
sweltering nightheat torrentful remembering eternal hillside basking, piqued by fragile farm-light burger bloated something to put in you we arrive in twilight saturation and the dusk never shifts with stargazer's neck flame-grilled in Treforest follow the road to Graig up through the trees smudged sodium blobs airless mornings propelled via an exclusive cafetiere pizza bloated light-headedness of the African vacation spot Jupiter sorrowful lost loves lost to the unchosen tributaries Moroccan waft boils dark ales
jazzy metronome of Shakleton in evening sweatrooms. Pick out a constellation. They are faint in an increasing darkness. Planes move. No, it's stars, it's comets. Comets move. They jump across the limitless canvas of sky. Myriad trajectories. Our discarded routes. Electricity shimmies on the musty air. The valley stoically waits. It stays calm. It cools down and unwinds. In time, other lights gain power until the whole scene twinkles with unexpected efficiency. A van's headlamp beam casts its brightness over the Rickards housefronts. Night doesn't seem to come. The unnamed place between dusk and full night lingers, and we hang back in it. Jupiter shines. A reassuring orange-red ball. Already out of position from the previous night, signalling the march, the brittleness of the single moment.
rove up towards ransacked mines small signals highlight dead industry stupidly hot even cradled under oak canopy exhausting trudge hunting ghost versions of these coves, the fulcrum of the community cake bloated recycled escarpment unseen sprinkler rustle sausage-dog silhouette black against amber a breathless second before immediate Polaris the disappointing star pale on the inky vastnessa strange pocket of humidity validates time-warped aspirations. Uni-era fondness regurgitated as flashbacks melting on the perennial broccoli-tree hillsides. Deep into the tunnel of the horizon you might pick out a wavy shimmer from the bay. Moroccan air-bulge blasts all settlements. Eerie torch-beam penetrates black fields, morse punctuates the stillness. My booze-sozzled head laps up a sense of gathering sentiment. In the daze I soak up summer's ephemeral gold dust. The magic of transitions. Phantoms of fumbled soulmates. Every epoch comes streaming back, propelled by shaky bulbs pinning together the unquestionable vista.
late-pint pilgrimage dusky 80s interiors and harsh tan-lines add powerful decoration the evening pumped up ready to burst Ponty train sign radiant and glassy against night glossy bartender case studies casually draped across tables numbed by thick warm air apocalypse narratives Cormac and Orwell begin to dominate memories of pilgrims repeated and repeating regardless of era odysseys attempted throughout literature into a universal compendium an inexhaustible hunt for truth breadstick bloatedsquashed by heat in various dusk-time rooms my mind slides to pre-lockdown realities that remain distant and I love the burgeoning constellations but admit that my own patterns have tinged me with a bittersweet feeling that the progressive warmth fails to fully dislodge and I strive for a foothold on my own thoughts of security and forward movement and then once more I focus on the far-away assurance found in Jupiter and Saturn and the Plough and the Navigator's Triangle and the hundreds of other, unidentified stars and in the dashing and transient comets, which I probably resemble most, darting over the canvas, almost unseen, glistening, but then gone, departed to some invisible realm.
Poundland coke syrup quickly melts away parched grasslands betray the epoch smokestacks on sky blue showcase the suburbs I sense remixed faces on virgin terrain Bjork's killer whale Magic Mountain mint choc-chip and baclava evaporating legs boiling throughout the odyssey winding mercilessly on heat-haze primaries until the sanctuary of a sunless nightfantastic sky blue of eternal sun-drench. Pollen fragrance settles. Indomitable greenhouse leaf silhouettes. Loosened and unleashed by brown pale I melt into the planetarium-perfect vista. Reminder of Calvino. I feel daft and insignificant under the borderless panorama. Worried about my petty losses, when I could just marvel at the improbability of everything beyond and the raw chaos of time as it ploughs onwards and we orbit through the vastness to some hefty destination that we still do not know. Celebrations wrappers crunch. Paul Hollywood chuckles in half-light behind. Dart of emaciated stray cat, gloaming eyes disappearing into the sweaty, ransacked hills.
© Copyright 2023 John Maher