somniat 26: what the gargoyle saw

somniat 26 — what the gargoyle saw

Over its mocking mouth
and over its misshapen, oversized nose,
the gargoyle’s eyes are all that’s left of its menace;
huge, deep, and hollow,
they glare down the entire length of the promenade,
carefully crafted and put into place, back when everything
down here, so far underground,
was still fresh, and the amorphous walls
still wet and dripping in their peculiar molds.

Back then, each shop wasn’t just a curiosity
full of the trite and the worn, the camp and the discarded,
but instead each was a boutique
that represented the cutting edge,
small studios that featured the avant la lettre;
whether it was in painting or in fashion
or even in odd forms of miniature architecture,
it was here first, deep under the earth,
where creation was overflowing,
bursting at the seams in stunning innovation;
it was even here that Umhala Marsuya
turned in her first public minuet at sixteen to an mere audience of ten,
long before she danced at the Bella Vista Theater to an audience of a thousand;
and it was here that you could come to stand within inches Roy Murad
as he painted each stroke of the Cherchez la Femme
that now hangs in the Nirgendwo gallery
behind a wall of glass, where it can only be seen
by appointment and by the right people.

But time has outlasted the promenade,
where with the ending of so called great economy
the artists packed it up and went elsewhere
and the trains stopped coming
and the wide mouth of gargoyle
that led the way to subway was patched over
with wide planks of plywood that were painted the color of ash
and gave the once menacing monster comically unruly teeth
which eventually gave way to the bright spectacle of graffiti
along with bits and pieces of words,
poetry that had accumulated over the years.

It is under the haunting eyes of the gargoyle
that we move toward our destination
at a pace so languid that on any other day
you would mistake us for a couple newly in love
taking a stroll somewhere out-of-the-way;
but even as my angel holds my hand, tenderly,
I know
we’ll never be lovers
and we’ll never be friends.

We are finally there, so close,
we stand under the gargoyle’s eyes
where they can no longer reach us;
my guardian with one hand in mine
and the other holding our light
searches the graffiti for something,
I don’t know what;
but she stops her light at this or that place
and reads aloud little bits of poetry;
her voice is solemn and unexpectedly sad:

Love sets us free
she reads, and
tears such as angels weep
and
where flaming wheels begin to run
and
the time of youth has fled
and grey hairs are on my head;
she closes her eyes and sighs,
where is it?

I see it before she does,
and I point it out,
Mercy, pity, peace
is the world’s release

That’s it,
she whispers,
and she almost smiles.

She puts her flashlight down
and faces me;
she lets her fingers trace briefly across my cheek
I’m letting you go,
and before I’ve protested
she lets go of my hand,
and soon is at work
on the piece of plywood where I found the message;
it is lose,
parts of its edge must have worn out long ago;
it doesn’t take long to pull it free
and then we have to step back quickly
as it nearly falls on top of us both;
the clang as it hits the ground
echoes down the promenade
and we look up at the gargoyle
half expecting its eyes to have shifted.

My angel take up her flashlight again
and shines it toward the new opening,
we see a long wide pink surface leading up
toward the old and unused subway station;
she puts her hand back in mine
as we duck under the board above
and slip out of the promenade;
but I stop her for a moment
and I look back
to remember it
one last time, before whispering,
good-bye.

• somniat 27: the lolling tongue
• somniat 26: what the gargoyle saw
• somniat 25: chrysocolla
• somniat 24: heat
• somniat 23: parousiamania
• somniat 22: basalt and ebony
• somniat 21: a festival of stars
• somniat 20: a standoff
• somniat 19: wingless dragonflies
• somniat 18: an exchange between lawyers
• somniat 17: the old cinema
• somniat 16: through the vent
• somniat 15: out and into
• somniat 14: a decision in retrospect
• somniat 13: trust
• somniat 12: utterly beautiful
• somniat 11: spotted
• somniat 10: the men's room
• somniat 9: through the alcove iii
• somniat 8: through the alcove ii
• somniat 7: through the alcove i
• somniat 6: the mountain
• somniat 5: the change
• somniat 4: fear
• somniat 3: numbers
• somniat 2: in shadows
• somniat 1: a place underground