(a selection from an unwrtten whole) pt. 3

Nighttime in Union Square park. The cool cement walkways are awash in the movement of commuters, busy bodies, and the occasional drunkard. The mysterious honking and outburst of not only the passing cabs, but also a contingent of souls in the southwest corner tuning up and preparing their all brass New Orleans style jazz instruments for the playing. As with the crack of a whip, or the firing of a gun, they begin.

DUB-A-WEEEE-BWABWAHHH, CHEKA CHEKA CHEKA, SISSSSSS BWAAAAH, DUB WEEEEEEE YAAAAAAH

The sound sliding about, wet and impossible to pin down. The trombones, at least six of them, the tuba, and an enigmatic woman who handles a tambourine with a rhythm and movement so distant as if from the deepest jungles of the human libido. Shakes moves and sways, all of them. So frantic and natural. A religious uproar lacking a deity, lacking a structure. An uprising of the soul, this the sound blasting unapologetically into the otherwise benign New York night.

CHEKA-SKWEEEEEBEEE-DIP DIP DIP, BWAwaWAwaWA, YEEEEEOWWWWHOOPPPP

People begin to gather. Some start tapping their feet, dancing ensues. Light swaying at first, with a polite gentrified tapping of the foot, a thoughtless sway, a clap of the hands, more hips, more movement increasing, lustfully. A drug-like anesthesia consuming the airwaves focusing in and destroying the panic, the vacuum, the sense of self. The people become one, everyone dancing. Compelled by charity and gratitude a few move rhythmically to the band and religiously give dollars of appreciation, rigorous in their honesty, dollars of love, dollars of hope, being as dollars never were. A trickle at first, increasing and suddenly rivers of cash flow to the performers. Excitement makes itself present in the perspiration of all gathered within this new organic temple of sound. The deepest of pockets prove insufficient. People, mad and hysterical, run to bank machines to gather more cash, it being thrown at the performers, offered as to gods. Business men calling their bankers, demanding investments sold, "we must go liquid!" they yell shedding ties and blazers and button-ups. Briefcases left like crying children on sidewalks abandoned. The passion the gratitude the madness. Everyone caught, a constant motion blur, to and from money machines and lost in Zen dance state, wild flailing motions.

BAH BAH BAH, WEEEE WEEEE, BAH BAH BAH BAH WEEEEEOOOPPP, DIP DIP BA DOOPAP BA DIP

The pile of money, estimated in millions and growing at the pace of fear dissipating, a tower before the performers. The gratitude implacable, the people thirsty and drunk with the desire to repay and take part in this orgiastic moment of sound, this musical baptism. The money is worthless next to such beauty, life distilled to sound. A member of the crowd, brilliant and armed with matches sets the money to a bright, hot blaze. Finally proper recognition! The body of people, their bodies, beautiful and willing slaves to the sound, a new and invisible dimension.

BA DEE DEEP, BA DEE DEEP, BA DEEEEEE BAHWAHHWAAAHP

The flames are not enough, "more more more!" ,one shouts. Their gratitude still not fully expressed; the people rip down the neon corporate signs of business franchises surrounding the park, first goes HSBC, then the Skechers, Best Buy and Au Bon Pain are soon to follow. In minutes, all of the former signs of corporate strength, effigies to material lust, are heaved onto the fire. Ashes on mammalian hands, a few naked wild participants gesticulate wild and abstract images on barren spaces above so many glass sliding doors and entrances to newly christened nowheres. The garments and coverings that stifle and conceal, emblems to their former selves, are thrown piously to growing flames, flames that dance human-like, and humans that dance like ghosts. The trees, the leaves of the park are aglow, the branches shaking, the people dancing, the band playing.

A supernova in the endless night.

(a selection from an unwrtten whole) pt. 2

This is the road that is dark and gray. It stretches forward pushing upward. It is resistance beneath our feet. Women with strollers roll it and workers with boots bash it. This is the road, our response to the earth. These are the fists which pump near the road, front and back front and back. These are the feet that connect with the road. These are the lungs machine-like. He, the runner, long and short. Fists pumping, forward back, feet connecting ground, lungs machine-like. Conquering the road, pushing it backward, disposing of it parcel by parcel. The runner runs and defeats the ground beneath his feet. The runner runs for utility. The runner runs from danger. The runner runs from strife. The road serves equally the runner and the chaser. The chaser, the angry the underprivileged chaser. Wanting to take the day away he wants to take the day. The ground stretches from chaser to runner, drawing a line that refuses a line that resists. Lungs, machine-like, fists, pumping, feet, connecting. Chaser, runner, linked by the gray immovable mass serving dutifully beneath their feet.

Lungs machine-like and fading. Side walk slabs, open spaces with segregating horizontal lines, runner falling past them with step, praying for a finish line. Runner runs, chaser chases, demons between the two fill the void with fire and fear. Crack whip of the head, the runner looks back and back again, the chaser shrinking, fleeting, being enveloped in the road, in the world, in the night, in the gray. The finish line at last and runner ducks around a corner, the darkest silence on the street.

A dark and silent hiding space filled with fear, a pounding heart, and two conspicuous fiery lungs. Closed eyes, head back, back of head cool on cement building blockade. Think of times past, think of brighter days past. On this road, time spent playing boyish games and running and playing in the youthful sun. Laughter and anticipation of warm meals and stories and days shared, friends like brothers, and families too young for tragedy. Fear is fading. Gasps, are fading. The decrescendo, of the percussive heart and the calamity of the body, return to pianissimo. At one with the dark, with the silence. Safety, anonymous, protected by shadow, supported by ground. A return to the road, endless finish lines, and concrete slabs, and buildings with empty rooms or maybe just sleeping souls. A return to the harmonies and rhythms and silences of the city at night, the danger fading like a memory from an empty day, a memory dark and gray.