Uneasy Glistening

by David Alexander

It begins in moonlight and starshine, my bedroom in the amber glow of street sodiums. I flip through pages of French poetry. Find mornings of drunkenness, afternoons of wines and rose petals fallen in the gutters, evenings beneath Parisian skies, nights over-looking the moon dappled Seine - a world of crazy rooftops and narrow, winding streets. Elongated shadows slip across ancient walls, footsteps sound on cobbled streets.

In my dreams, African sunfires over wine dark oceans; rolling scrublands and a town of tumble down shacks. Leaves of French poetry gust on a sea breeze, scitter along the shore. I meet a young man. He smokes cheap cigarettes, drinks whisky from a hip flask. Claims he’s an entrepreneur, but he has a poet’s eyes. He is attracted to me, follows me through the streets of the ramshackle town.

In the dusky evening he engages me in conversation. We sit in a cafe on the south side of a dusky square, sip lukewarm wine and smoke too much. His hands weave spells in the air, enchanting the poverty of his dreams. He wishes to be rich, to own a beachside villa filled with the talk of businessmen, the babble of wheels and deals. He fantasises TV screens flaring in the early dark, jazz muzaks drifting down hallways lined with sanitised paintings of desert landscapes. He offers to cut me in, make me a partner. He likes the colour of my eyes.

I stay over at his place, listen to him pacing the room next door.

I awake to grey light through parted curtains, the sound of rain on the windows. A faded portrait of Jim Morrison glares down at me. By my side, an anthology of French verse (with translations en face) lies open at ‘Le Bateau Ivre’, ‘The Drunken Boat’, by Arthur Rimbaud.

The days that follow are dull; semi-realist dramas under overcast skies, the fluorescent strips of the library. I move between the shelves like a somnambulist, only the tubercular coughing and retching of the tired old men, like sacks in the easy chairs, disturbs me. I watch the newspapers flutter from their hands like giant moths slowly dying. In their eyes are the ghosts of their fading dreams.

On the bridge over the swollen river, I lean against the rail. At my feet, a shopping bag full of poetry - Villon, Chernier, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Apollinaire, Cocteau. I am unsure what it is I’m doing. I seek reassurance in the motion of the trees, the flow of trains across the distant viaduct. I watch an old bag lady pick litter from the riverbank and stuff it in her trolley.

Am I crazed, cracked, through seeing through too many poets’ eyes? Examining the folds of their skin, the angles of their cheekbones. Searching between the lines of their masterworks. I give up reasoning, go with the flow. I pick up my shopping bag, the weight of so many poets in my arms, turn from the river and go home.

I drift into a reverie in which the young man of my dream and I walk along the seashore. We do not speak, merely watch the gulls in flight over the dunes. I realise he is in love with me, his left hand brushes lightly over my wrist. He smiles, then bends down, carves his name in the sand.

I spend the evening in my bedroom. Meditate upon the front cover of Illuminations; the portrait of Rimbaud, the cool arrogance of his youth, the hint of disdain around his mouth, the infinite mystery of his eyes. I look up at the window, the darkness beyond; the reflection of the light bulb hangs like a UFO beneath the cross frame. I wait impatiently for exhaustion and sleep.

I dream Rimbaud is in town. I sense him, long and dark, haunting the streets and alleyways. I see his shadow moving down the avenues of the housing estates; hear his voice whispering in the parks; smell his cologne amid the late summer flowers; feel his presence among the down and outs congregated in and around the bus station. His poems flutter on drifts of wind through the town centre.

I seek him out among the shopping malls and multistorey car parks; across traffic islands, through subways. I hang around the video arcades, strip-joints and massage parlours. Linger by canal sides, roam the riverside walks; explore the undersides of old iron bridges, the shadows thrown by motorway flyovers. I stumble across building sites, fall and find myself looking up at the moon.

In the shopping precinct, confused by the proliferating escalators, walkways and balconies, the insistent dazzle of the shopfronts, their displays distorting in fantasies of Mediterranean light, I find him. A silhouette framed in the window of a travel agent; ghost-like on a backdrop of African sunsets and tropical beaches, haloed by the neon form of a Boeing 747. He seems to beckon me with long curling fingers.

Gone; dissipated on a wing or a moonbeam, floated away on a shaft of streetlight. In my mind’s eye I see him reappear on the roof of the multistorey. In pursuit I climb its stairways; his poems are daubed, graffiti on the walls; linger on the landings, his songs seem to echo in the liftshafts. I push open the doors to the parking levels.

Crunch across frosts of glass, through pools of fluorescent light, between rows of darkened cars - their paint-work scratched, flaking; windscreens blank; side windows mirror my pale, uneasy form. I ascend the rampways, move through shifting shadows, kick a can - it goes clattering away into the dark. Somewhere, young lovers make out; the sound of squeaking springs and asthmatic breathing - I imagine them entwined on the back seat of a car, their half naked bodies in films of sweat; their sex act bridges the ineffable gulfs between friends.

On the roof: silence, the vault of a sodium sky, a faded full-bloom moon. The deserted parking spaces stretch far away, a flattened desert of concrete. A scattering of litter; empty coke bottles, crushed beer cans, fast food cartons - the detritus of some wild rooftop party.

I walk to the balustrade, look out across the town. Dim rectilines, right angles and parallel bars; squares of saffron light, globes of neon. The high-rises seem to penetrate the skies. In the distance, streams of light along the dual carriageways, stars of glinting chrome. Warning beacons flash dangerously. I breathe in the cool air, taste tangs of cooking oil and fried grease.

I close my eyes; a cold wind ruffles my hair, caresses my face. Open my eyes, turn around to see Rimbaud leaning nonchalantly in the doorway to the stairs. I walk back across the parking spaces. Somewhere, the sound of a bottle smashing, cries and whispers, running feet. A child laughs like a corrupted angel.

On the ground floor, beneath the uneasy flickering of the exit sign, we kiss. His lips are cool, they taste of whisky and spring flowers. I slip my arms clumsily around his waist, my right hand bumps against his pocketed hip flask. His tongue snakes across my ear lobe, leaves a trace of glistening saliva. I close my eyes, his hands push my chest so that I bump up against the wall. He enfolds me in a gentle rain; the salty scent of that African shore - sudden image of a vermilion sun resting upon an indigo sea.

There are tears in my eyes, he brushes them from my cheeks. Smiles, takes me by the hand and leads me through the deserted town centre. Light from the shopfronts spills across the pavements, bleeds into the gutters and drains; illuminates a path for us between shadowy buildings, across wastes of tarmac. Weeds and nettles sigh dreamily on the breeze.

We cross the moon-silvered river. I spy the old bag lady sleeping, curled protectively around her collection of precious litter.

Rimbaud is infatuated with the housing estates. Ghost-like, he drifts across the unfenced lawns, the gravel drives. Peers through the lace curtains of living room windows.

An oversized gnome, he looms over garden ponds, stares wistfully up at bedroom windows.

He turns to me and smiles sadly. Whispers something, whether to himself or me I cannot tell.

We halt ever more often. Rimbaud moves away, explores the front gardens; runs his hands across the pebble dash of the walls, the frosted glass in the front doors. He seems less and less aware of me. I stand in a pool of streetlight and call out his name, he does not hear.

Stoops to examine the flower beds beneath an ivy covered trellis.

I have an alarming vision of him gaining entrance to one of the houses. He glides through the hallways, is transfixed by the blank TV screen, the dormant speakers either side of a midi-system. He broods over his reflection wavering in the Formica tabletops and the aluminium armrests of chairs. I see him in bedrooms, crouched, like a hunter over its prey, above the sleeping form of a child.

I awake with a start. A drab sky is framed in the window - rain on the pane, wind through the chimney. The TV aerial hums, avant-garde muzak for a mournday morning.

Beside me, the features of Jim Morrison are draped over the pillow, his eyes regarding me with faint amusement. The poster must have come away from the wall during the long night.

I sit up, swing my legs to the floor, pad barefoot to the window. I lean on the cold sill, look down the long, verdant garden; a riot of green sheens and slick yellows. Birds scatter into the trees, arc over the rooftops. I half expect to see Rimbaud beneath the eves of the trees, knee-deep in long grass and wild flowers, smiling enigmatically. I imagine him walking slowly up to the house, waiting patiently at the front door. I let him in and lead him up to my bedroom. We make love, our limbs splayed across Morrison. Dreams of a mythic Africa flare around us.

I turn from the window, walk back to the bed. Step over tumbles of French poetry, the haggard features of Baudelaire gaze up between my legs. I sit on the end of the bed, stare into space, recall last night’s dream, glance at the poster flopped across the pillow.

Unthinkingly, I reach down between my knees, pull open the drawers beneath my bed, take out my passport and place it on the bed beside me.

In Paris things would be different. I pick up a book of poetry, open it up, place it on my thighs and read. Images of hungover mornings beneath billowing trees, afternoons in roadside cafes watching pimps sift uneasily through criminal crowds. Evenings under a wishing star; admiring the geometries of gables - stone gargoyles loom out of the shadows.

Painted ladies smile, though their eyes are pools of the deepest melancholias. Sour wines are spilt during knife fights, burnished metal gleams in the moonlight; blood scours a young Arab boy’s face.

I get up, wash and dress. Rip the pages from my books of poetry, line my pockets with them; pack some clothes in a hold-all. I take my chequebook from its hiding place, slip it into the inside pocket of my jacket. I go downstairs, hold-all carried awkwardly over my shoulder. I unlock the front door, tug it open, step out into flurries of rain; the ground is soft beneath my feet. I close the door, lock it and post the key through the letterbox. I set off through the long damp grass, duck beneath the dripping branches of the trees.

I walk to the railway station, barely notice my surroundings - vague impressions of slow moving traffic, the rhythm of windscreen wipers. At the station I buy a one-way ticket to the city. I have big plans, see a big metal bird moving slowly across a deep blue sky.

The train is late, pulls painfully into the station. I take a seat by the door, put the hold-all between my feet, use my heels to kick it under the seat. Next to me, a fat, sweating man flicks through the pages of a pornographic magazine. He is aware of my looking at him, he shifts uncomfortably, pudgy fingers slip across an overripe nipple. The train starts up with a shudder, clanks from the station.

My last true sight of the town is the brown river snaking through the green park. The old bag lady is on the bank again, picking up litter and stuffing her trolley. Perhaps she senses me, for she looks up as the train passes across the viaduct and waves. I wave back as if saluting a friend or relative.

Already I am seeing my arrival in Paris. I walk the tree-lined boulevards, observe the minor dramas of the street: a taxi driver argues with his fare; a streetwise philosopher gesticulates over a cup of steaming coffee; an ageing lecher stares after the smooth legs of a young office worker; an out-of-work actress poses moodily in the doorway to a bar, her stance mirroring her memories of a thousand movies.

I will stay in a cheap hotel by the murmuring Seine. At night I’ll sit by the window, watch leaves of poetry gust among the gnarled trees. Starry-eyed lovers walk arm in arm below my window, kiss unselfconsciously as though nothing else were real. Doomed artists, descended from their garrets with the moonrise, brood among the silver waters of the river.

In the morning I shall go to the Pere Lachaise cemetery and lay a wreath of roses on the grave of Jim Morrison.

The train jolts suddenly, stopping at a signal. Startled, I look around. Rain spatters the window, the sky glowers. Laid out below us, a sprawl of back-to-backs, the corrugated plastic roofs of warehouses. In the distance, a motorway flyover and forests of tower blocks. The fat man dabs his flushed face with a crumpled handkerchief, smiles nervously at me; his magazine wallows between his plump thighs.

After leaving Paris I shall head south to a Mediterranean port. To a white ship berthed beneath the stars. We’ll set sail on a cool north-westerly, our course piloted by the flight of seven Albatrosses. I watch them from the bow; admire the span of their wings, the down on their bellies.

An African landfall; rolling scrublands and a small town clinging to the slopes above the shore - corrugated iron roofs and dark, mysterious windows between peeling posters. The quayside is full of tall negroes, their wise faces shadowed by the brims of their straw hats. Cool, immaculate, it seems as though they have sprung fully-formed from earthy loins deep in the continent’s interior. Their body stances suggest all the knowledge in the world is carried in their musculature.

In the east the sun flares, a luminous track fans across the wine-dark ocean. The seven Albatrosses scatter suddenly, go diving among the waves before gliding away. I look back to the town, see Rimbaud leaning nonchalantly against a stack of bales.

As the train rolls beneath the gothic arches of the terminus - shadows sprawl across dusty platforms littered by ticket stubs and soiled wrappings - I smile. Rimbaud walks to where the ship berths, opens his arms and grins.