Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Vicious doldrums.


Here we are adrift in the doldrums of november, december and january. The weather has closed in, just as the light has faded. People are snarling at each other: using cars, or body language to assert their importance just as surely as it demonstrates their inhumanity.

The mast has broken off the vessel, just as much as the community spirit is being worn away by hard effort in the absence of reward, satisfaction or happiness. $10 million may, in time, become cheap at the price.

So we hunker down - holding on to whatever rock exists in our lives - waiting for that precious moment when the wind rises, direction returns and life has, once again, both point and serenity.

A verse from the rime of the ancient mariner:

"All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion ;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean."

(image pinched from here: see all the illustrations by gustave dore for the rime.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Day after day, elated dismay,
We suck, sour breath, raw emotion;
Idle arse and painful shit
Wrists upend the panting lotion."

Nick said...

www.vlhunt.com/gallery2

Some hobbies are more fun at this time of year than hauling your sorry ass around on a bike.

martysavalas said...

http://open.spotify.com/track/5L5F5WkU8CZDYunLnnXsyq

jacquie phelan said...

Even our town has a bit of a doldrumesque feel to it..

Jim Malone said...

You wanna know how to get Winter?

Winter pulls a knife, you pull a gun.

He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.

*That's* the *Scottish* way!

And that's how you get Winter.

Now do you want to do that?

Are you ready to do that?

I'm offering you a deal.

Do you want this deal?