Strange Days #1 - Strange Days are here... | Page 15

Jellyfish In A Warm Sea

Screaming, slogans and movie soundbites ring out.
Across the mass of bodies that writhe with serpentine vigour;
Above a floor whose sticky vinyl surface tries desperately

to keep them glued in place,
As fleshy forms collide and are repelled,
By a spirit that moves in each limb and every manic grin.
Gum chewing freakouts and slickly choreographed affectation mix,

In the manic flash of strobe lights,

The near-visible tendrils of body odour,

And the stale waft of dry ice.

Enough.
A little pretentious maybe., Self conscious certainly.
And if you think:
‘ah, he doth protest too much’
Know that I know, I did not protest enough.
Did not traipse through crowded streets,
Get kettled, fight the good fight,
Live, and laugh and dance amid the lights,
Of police vans and camera flash.
The Marseillaise never sung in full voice,
Only through smiling teeth,

Ironic condescension for the cause,
Perhaps you think?
But in my third eye I see I walk the brink,
Of a razor in my mind,
And either way be blown by gusts,
With winds of opinion, loud and shrill
And each and every squall, it seeks to thrust
Me down on either side,
and make me raise my colours high.
‘You’re either with with us or against us’
A fool once said,
But I will not, cannot, choose.
Passing outward, through the swarm of seething bodies into Fools are not always wise, as plays have taught,
And much of what they say, in life, does come to naught
the far distance: Arid and vast and ancient,
Saharan instincts at the base of my skull throb with heat,
Cast a sublime haze that ripples and shimmers with each Is trying to be reasonable a vice?
When I see passions raised on either side,
throb of bass,
All I can think is: “yeah, but...”
Cracks and reforms at the shock of airhorns and sirens.
I don’t presume to play the devils advocate, but...
All I can do is sway, wide eyed and wondering.
I’m trying desperately to hold onto my headspace:
That safe haven of stable thoughts and structured images.
But everything keeps dissolving

into a decontextualised mess of sight

and sound

as each cresting wave of warmth rises in my brain.
Like slipping under the high-water mark,

a warm bath of instability keeps washing me clean with
each passing tide.
When the music rises to the forethought

it seems like deserts stretch from my unseeing eyes.

Edges begin to seep and spill tentacled offshoots.
I feel like a jellyfish:

A bundle of nerve endings

spread through a warm ocean,

Each limb drifting,

Beyond the reach of an inert ego.

A primitive soup of thoughts bubbling

within a membrane,
a few cells thick.

And there it is again, that note of hesitation.
I lack conviction, I suppose,
Or ideals; or drive,
Or a grandiose wish that I could compose,
A different way, through life to those,
For whom the struggle seems so clear.

My life, if I may call it that, so little have I lived it,
Has been a tightrope walk.
Not through deprivation and despair.
As the currents of the primeval sea momentarily deposit me But still higher and higher I hang the cord.
on an island of clarity,
Always climbing,
I look around and I smile quietly to myself,
Height after height,
Pinpoints of light burst lik