Portals between Here and There

I was having a bit of a sleep-deprived day and looking out from my balconcito, listening to music, some of my favourite tunes: I Will Follow You Into The Dark by Deathcab For Cutie, Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole and The Commotions, Shame and The Desperate Kingdom of Love by PJ Harvey.

I live on the fifth floor and though there is a building somewhat higher than mine right opposite, mostly there is a feeling of relative space, compared to other, more modern urban environments where one is hemmed in and the sky is blocked out. So in the vast expanse of air, there were tiny bits of fluff floating, little dandelion-esque white things. In said high-rise opposite, in the floor diagonally opposite and below mine, there's an old lady who is always always there. She has birdcages in the window and a big fluffy golden retriever.

I found myself thinking, as I watched the old lady pet the old dog, he probably sleeps a lot and is probably quite used to the old lady. Probably pads from room to room, idly eating and sleeping. Facile observations perhaps but I suppose the underlying sense is 'Does his life matter, does hers, these two old forgotten souls'. Bit dramatic of me. And yes they do matter, as much as Einstein's and Obama's and mine and yours.


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Sometimes - Othertimes

sometimes the sheer weight of molecules
is overwhelming
othertimes there is love in every single one
burgeoning, coalescing perfectly.

sometimes i am not so much sucked in as frozen out
inside-out, alien, viscerated, unalmalgamated.
othertimes president obama and the dog in the old lady's flat across the way
are equal because both are part of the plan and plan there be,
even though i am not privy and being in the dark is O-K.

sometimes the wisping particles of lighter-than-air vegetation
are buffeted by the same eddies as I, my aloneness as that heavy air.
othertimes plankton we may be but our power is Other;
mass relative, in this universe heavy, in another lighter;
lighter than the oppressive crowd, the stench, the bank queue.

portals between Here and There are spoken of by PJ key-change
and glimpsed in Waits husky contortions,
hailed by Deathcab, mined by Cole and Commotions,
Here is the noise, There is the music.