Curtain and Stairs

White Curtain

So I walked one night, deeply into the thought of wondering of thinking of the anti-ego artist who prefers to make but never show the making or the ostentation of the artist mark, but makes to fit so perfectly you never see the art or artist there, invisible – and it was dark and it had rained, and I without a thought I walked across a metal door on the sideway like a basement bulkhead flush to the concrete -. And there and then a sudden jolt, and white. And for a moment the scene the street the night was gone and only white remained that filled all I could see from left to right to all around. So white like purest snow reflecting of the sun, white like milk, white like angels teeth. And then step off of the metal door, and all the mundane things returned, and burning smell of paper money, and a street light and a mouse, so then again, I want the white, I stepped again, my foot on top the grate and white returned, and this time with a wisp of sound, and nothing there to see but white that filled my eyes and when I turned my head, the scene was nothing more or less, but all the same, as there was not a different all at once one distance to my eyes as white was white and every where the same. And off again, because, how curious the change, I thought and even though the white was all and beautiful, I wanted to compare before and then. And there the air again was dark but all uneven as the street light took the dark away in part, where flies and hosts of night things ran and flew to it, and corners where the smells came from, and smoke, and from a barrel, but, it came from underneath my shirt as well, but rather then remain here in concern for this, I stepped again, and for a moment that most acrid smell returned but then again was gone and chased away by color all of white. Something hurt like pain, but I ignore as I am following some bliss I found. White, of eyes, my rolling eyes. Back in my head, the pupils only seeing only white, the color on my brain. So there as natural I try to stay, and even as I separate from it in bursts on entering again, a blur and faces and I see some hands that pull at me, and even as I try to pull away and fall down to my metal door, the white I crave is coming back and pulling in between the flashes of the air as hands have raised me up, and I have pulled away and fallen down again conducting back to me, all white, and I am gone in it, neither waking or asleep but firmly, lastly, there. 

Black Stairs

It was hot between the rainy season and typhoon, and I was walking in the night and followed a short road between where cars won’t fit and motorcycles often will not go, and there I walked and found I stepped across a metal door flush to the cement. It rattled, and I liked the sound, and I could feel a narrow band of air like it was cooled, that came from where the two sides of the metal door were not quite meeting. I leaned and stood and felt it on my face, and looked around, and seeing no one and I heard nobody but a moaning cat, I opened up the doors, and down below the light from up the street light wouldn’t go, and it was dark, just past the first step down, and coolest air rose up and curled around my head. I looked around again, and stepping down, I felt the darkness there was cold, and dry on me, and farther down I went, and black was even cooler like a piece of ice that rubbed me on my skin. Below, I couldn’t tell, perhaps a room, a cellar, something somewhere made the air so, not a dusty note but all of clean and cold like stone inside a cave. I close the metal door behind me and I take it in, I think of when I walked in woods in forest as I child and I would lay down in a place at dark and hear and feel the cold  and darkness of alone, and in a woods inside a park in cities when in dark I lay at night and looked up at the air and knew then no one who knows me there, and God knows no one here, the door closed tight behind me, I can feel a wind now like I fall down deep into an endless well, a wind that howls into my ears, I wonder has a typhoon started now – but it is black and nothing comes but black, and cold, and peace of nothingness like natures night.   Lewis Gesner