The Smile of the Unvanquished

surprised by a sea haar rolling inland, he pricked up his ears for the call of the foghorn. sidling through a wicker work of bracken and nettles, sliding and tripping over slimy rocks, he crawled towards his refuge: this stalwart pillar of his yearnings - a light tower. icy talons sank into his bowed skull, accosted as he was by a blustering gale - sputum of foam and brine hissing and roaring from the bottomless crevasses of the ocean. frozen on a rickety spot, nerves stretches to a strain, he howled a shriek of despair against the hungry beast. a mouth bloated with a legion of slithering tongues gobbled him up; down a torrential maelstrom he went, spiralling towards the womb of that gargantuan dread.

along the jaded cliffs of absurd wretchedness .. I lay myself down on the edge of industrial fossils; their perdurable embers cradle a whist interlude at the beck and call of the illustrious conductor. The briny sough from clamoring waters eases the woes of this callous funereal bride, whose bunions are grazed by fusty sea weed and its yield of decaying effluents. Wilted vanity coughs out sneers at the millenial clichés wrought to forge hermetic design where only bland erosion shines. Unfathomable: a depth so tight in circumscription and yet cramped by mammoth dread gazing half-wittedly at you. The overlook of an endless plain of frosted ashes that intones a crunchy polyphony in which I discern my half-caste name. I do not belong here, but already that epiphany of lucid insanity crawls away from me. Anchored on this spot, I lapidify into the scenery - a wart grows on the temple of the sandstone empress.

In an dreamless dream, I am awakened in the centre of a triptych, an opaque and leaden warped counter-reality of our concrete pedestrian world. Logic and purpose follows the school of Escher; sequences ascent and trip up in staggering staircases without landings. The linear perspective mellows away, colours and playful contrasts of shadow and light sink in latrinary ooze. I leaf through an almanac drenched in sepia that poorly attemps to hide the icy slate grey of yesteryears ensconced in perpetual dusk. I register no words, only their beclouded silhouettes in wasted away ink. I listen to epics in categorically unredeemable trifling matter. Relinquishing all apprehension, I infuse the exiled soul in a concatenation of rhythmic murmurs between the amative sea and my vexed blood. I walk in desolation; my surroundings are soaked in bitter-sweet melancholy cowled over the pox marks of congenital grief. Lofty prospects and bloated fervor run on high heels

Laag hangt de zon rood aan de kim, terwijl de hemel zich geleidelijk een purper gewaad aanmeet. Een frisse wind komt aanrukken, doortrokken van zenuwachtige oprispingen, die wijzen op naderende spanningen in de nadagen van het jaar. In de woeste aarde zoek ik koortsachtig naar het verspilde zaad van verleden jaar, een ijdele ontginning tussen kiezel en zand, in een roesachtige stemming vol wilde verwachtingen en noodlottige angstgevoelens. Beide ingevreten door spataders van razernij. Mijn lichaam waadt zich door het slijk van aangeboren onbehagen. Zwiepende struiken, stekelig en bruin, en ritselende bladeren heffen een koorzang van smaad op,dat me tot grotere ijver noopt, terwijl mijn geest allerlei voorwendselen oproept voor een stille, maar kordate aftocht. Mijn vingers graaien verder in de aarde; in mij ontspint het idee om mijn vermoeid hart te begraven onder een tumulus. Gauw ontzenuw ik deze zoveelste plundertocht in de begraafplaats der verbeelding. Pure dadendrang versto

in the slant of Moonlight, homeless motes loiter as starving maggots; once earthbound, now stymied from life's trickeries, they're the spoils that danced with insolent glee to the riffs of many an insincere Eulogy. my weary Eyes gaze blankly into the Night, redolent of cinereal gloom; ripened of too many a fruitless Journey, I recover down below the taste for its sallow harvest and stagger on in my omen-laden Pilgrimage. as the hour struggles lamely to its exit, hell looms into our pygmy World. palid cataracts pelt down in a barrage of torrential fire, a rancid Banshee cures the frosty air with thundering songs of laminated Anxiety. braides of lightning run like shrieking veines across the dreary billows, slays the viscose and stifling air, for too long enriched by Gaunts calling my Name, to avail myself for a drink from their mulched bosoms. sworn Fealty to the imperative instinct of survival, I dash for an escape. no bearings nor Lodestar to suit my personal

Those acherontic hours in close rapport to my gibbous and waning friend. At last reprieved from a scorching day-time heat that cracked the whip on my rattling bones. Still the fiend granted me more mercy than the blue funk simmering between the walls of my skull - imagine yourself entombed, in a tight coffin, and your breath goes a-go-go, while writhing pale forms crawl in and out your decomposing husk to the melody of an atrocious waltz - Suddenly I snap out of that torpid mood, shiver in expectancy as Brother Jazz preaches me his gospel. And I get his hint, follow it through, still lathered in cold sweet, every next step a torment. Not quite aware of my own action, I enter into the night air. A cool breeze washes over me:the velvet cloak of midnight, Lady Nicotine wraps her filigree arm around mine. Together we're marooned in mystic silence. My rhythmic gait devours distances, while I flick on a wry smile that sets the world on fire.