LOCATION SCOUTING FOR THE HUMAN CONDITION

Barkley L. Hendricks (American, 1945-2017), Sir Nelson. Solid!, 1970. Oil on canvas, 46 x 30 in.

The sanctuary of my mind is a muted landscape of

birch trees combing through a vanilla sky. Over the horizon

you can see a traffic of gleaming hearses carrying old versions of myself,

coffins in limbo away from burial. These are the banks of my memories.

Tight, empty spaces unlike the room that is

my heart. A wide, lofty parlor with grande, operatic ceilings.

The proscenium vibrates of gold and rose. On the stage,

a singer bathes in a dusty spotlight & when she roars her

swan song the room quakes under vowels, crumbling into

a cinematic ruin called heartbreak.

That room is in the attic of the prison of my body.

A large, institutional structure done in a brutalist architecture.

A massive, graphite collection of industrial matters where scraps

of cloth flap in the barbed-wire. When it rains, every limb aches

& the corridors fill of bricks moaning hallelujah. 

In Victoria tower, I dream from a bedroom ever drenched in dusk,

counting blocks of candy light from my high window and

befriending flocks of pigeons between sleeps.

Despite their endless invitation, the clocktower's hands remain empty,

reminding me that lonely is the first place to be.