~
1 ~
...
From cold Kasarmikatu in late Spring, a solitary red-and-pink
candy-striped bedroom, my small fading pink rose-bud in
a blue glass on the table next to a notebook full of new
love-poems; the morning light bright, yet somehow strangely
still, silent, Scandinavian-spartan; hidden in a by-road,
secret, off Helsinki's Esplanad, a delicate cobble-stone
walk away from Cafe Strindberg; the Nordic Lights are now
shining all night, blotting-out all reason, all logic; and
he comes to my arms like a shadow of a shadow, the Maya
in his cool blue eyes like sacred Tibetan turquoise, his
hair the colour of ancient golden amber ... ah, my love,
my only love; my most beautiful lion-in-winter... !
...
From that secret love-cave did she escape, yet again, crossing
light-years in a second, far, far away into the future,
towards the mad, sweet warmth of Broadway and her sweet,
lost, kiss-craving souls from Long Island, and her red-leather-clad
Queens'-angry adopted-by-Jews Disney-cartoon-angels, and
her painfully-shy semi-Russian Wall Street account-execs,
her golf-playing Kodak-AppleMac executives, still hiding
all their passion and loneliness behind their beautiful
angelic dancer's faces as sad as Mikhail Baryshnikov's...
...
Annie Lennox, at war with Depeche-Mode; Smoooooth Jazz;
CD-101.9...
sweet
dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree, you travel
the world and the seven seas, everybody's lookin' for somethin';
some of them wanna use you; some of them wanna be used by
you; some of em wanna abuse you; some of em wanna be abused...
--- Hold your head up -- !
~ 2 ~
...The
choice was always between madness and sadness; this was
clear-enough inside Houlihan's Irish pub across from the
Lincoln Center fountain, by midnight, where her angry-adopted
Regos-Park-Disney-cartoon-angel still searched wildly for
White Album-love-songs before Dakota-death on a tired jukebox;
it was clear, too, in the Naval Operations Manager's crazed
escape from lonesome suburbia and to her arms inside his
silver Mustang without enough quarters for parking-space
in any by-lane, where ---- please, please, NYPDBlue! ----
just go away now, leaveusalone man, and let us soul-kiss
and heavy-pet in peace all Tuesday-afternoon, willya, dammit--?;
it was clear in his tenuous half-sentenced Russian omen-poetry
about sinking boats, over the telephone from Wall Street
just before bedtime; and it had been all too obvious inside
Kierkegaard's mental hospital, where she had left him behind...
clear as a diamond sparkling in the solitary madness of
his studio-apartment on Aleksis Kiven Katu, with its constellatory
curtains pulled tight against reality; RadioCite playing
NordicTopTen on the radio, where everything was either black,
or white.
...Sadness,
madness; madness, sadness; madness, sadness --! interchangeable
icons on the grand-piano-keys; the yo-yo of Yin and Yang
inside an Amsterdam-Avenue fortune-cookie... ! Where was
he; where was he -- ?... where will he be; where did we
all come from; where are we all going together.... ?
~
3 ~
...
Lithium-frozen feelings; the asylum-tag still on his hospital
pajamas; his eyes like the Baltic Sea divorced from springtime's
Viking-Line pleasure-cruises, now frozen-over with ice;
and me, smiling angelically in my wine-red velvet 50's dress,
Stockmann's Christmas-cherub-earrings, and golden flea-market-pumps,
skating a sharp scalpel-wound right through his frozen eyes...
Bunuel's 'Un Chien Andalou' turned upside-down; and me,
the rose-angel, the surgeon of life-and-death now.
...
Seasonal Affective Disorder; Dr. Freud asks me to "understand
his desperate need for Fugue, for escape from the freezing
ice." .
....
The erotic comedy is so much easier to play-out over British-Breakfast-blend-tea
and capuccino, up bright and early at a West- 66th and Broadway
Barnes-and-Noble cafe... It's a lot easier inside the Lincoln-Center
Saloon over chilled Chardonnay at happy hour, boisterous
with European expatriates after the Opera on Friday, its
side-tables laid-out with free kid's crayons... The erotic
comedy is a whole lot easier when the accent is Long-Island,
Regos-Park, Wall-Street, American-Beauty... It makes things
a whole lot easier.
...
Every few blocks on Helsinki's bleak highways is a full-up
mental hospital, such is the Nordic Xanadu; while down here,
home again on Broadway, there was my fat friendly homeless
madman, asleep again, just like sametimelastyear, under
the same sun or moon at every traffic-island, who woke up
gently like a baby when you offered him a box of kid's crayons;
and then, you begged me to kiss you; "Why don't we doitintheroad;
no-one will be watchin' us....?".
...
Love was so very much easier when the accent was New York.
No amount of Prozac-prescriptive moanings can ever take
the funny edge off an American man in pursuit of the erotic...
My Richard-Gere Naval officer, suicidal in L.I., turned
out to be all hot action and no talk ... But cute indeed;
a jolly good romp...! The grass is always greener; me, the
sultry exotic orchid, was his ultimate turn-on; and any
life was better than a life in Long Island, with its never-ending
mortgages, Edward-Scissorhands-neighbours, divorce-debts,
and White Salaried Time... I was the fantasy he had never
dared to dream, which suddenly came true in one flash of
a computer-screen; his startled, shy offer of an office-cell-phone
number, desperate love-talk, and a crescendo of erotic e-mailed
digital photographs of his phallic re-awakening...! I am
not complaining ... Melting in my arms like a schoolboy,
delirious with gratitude ... as for the incensed, insane
Finn, my sailor-boy's "cleaning his gun" now, to take care
of that...! --- Hey --- take it easy!--- this is America!
--
"...Everything
you do or say drives me totally crazy, sweetness... I'm
losin' my mind, thinkin' of the things you do... You make
me lose all of my logic and control and gentlemanliness
--- waaaay too easily! --- Hey, is this Halloween-witchcraft
or what --? So? --- are we gonna be 'friends-exchanging-bodily-fluids'...
? ...I'm kinda leery of your Psycho-guy out there in Nutland;
don't tell me about him, will you ... I've been pretty miserable
for many years myself ... I really gotta sit down and jus'
thinkaboutitall; will instant-message you again soon, promise,
sweetness... your lips are drivin' me insane! -- "
"...
You're leavin' me, to go get married to some nut-job in
Swissland! -- And all you do is talk about him, 24/7; guess
I have to 'respect' that? -- This doesn't interest me at
all; I'm looking for someone who's single, and who's interested
in me, not in painting me naked!... But -- tell me, do you
find me attractive?... ... Wasn't it good to see me?...
... I think you're breath-taking....! Now, send me an e-mail,
willya?... I wanna send you my Aishwarya and Sarita C. photo-archives...
! Promise me that it's written in stone now that you're
coming to my place, to watch 'The Making of Eyes Wide Shut'
on DVD? ... It will mean the world to me to give you your
first REAL movie-experience...!"
....
Life is good, / Life is sweet; / Grab yourself / A front-row
seat....
"...Dras
voite! Kak vui pozhavaite? ---"
"...No, sweetheart; I am NOT Russian; I take my time! ---
"...And I'm not Danish either, sweetheart; I'm no breakfast-pastry!
---
"...Am I a Cosmopolitan Cosmonaut? --- Now, are you getting
all Russian again, sweetheart? ..."
"...
Ohhhhhh --- Bay-bie! your British accent TURNS ME ON : BIG-TIME....!
--- 'not at Tall'! --- But, hey, you're jus' bored and want
somethin' to do, jus' to while-away your hours before you
fly off... sure, you're clever; you're engaged to some Nazi
in Europe, and you wanna go to the movies with your Jewish
cartoonist-muse in Manhattan...! that sounds pretty clever,
if you ask me -- ! And, that voice of yours -- it's Great-Gatsby-meets-BBCWorld
!... If you want somethin' to do, do a series of Satanic
paintings, with goat's-heads and Pentagrams, like Dante's
Inferno or the Canterbury Tales, will you....?"
"...
You are very intriguing... Very interesting... Very mysterious...
"... Love is the connection between Two / That empowers
both / With the strength of Many."
" ---
Hey, Sugar-momma ---! Are you ready for love? ... I'm jumpin'
into the shower, and will see you at the Opera Fountain,
in an hour! --- Kisses ---! "
~
4 ~
...
'Seize the Day', in pink and rose-red typeface on the computer-screen...
...
Carpe Diem; I am here, Kierkegaard's there...
...
I don't wanna hit any icebergs; the millennium-script is
still unfolding in this Divine Broadway Comedy...
...
What's the Password?
---
Fidelio...?
|
---
Srimati Lal,
November 2000,
New York City. |
|