Terra

Tunis: a group of foreigners play a game near the ancient ruins. Turin: cats in the cathedral. Tunbridge Wells: a man is building a stone wall. Tenerife: these are the books that we have read. Tristan da Cunha: the sea, always the sea. Tenafly: a fire hydrant, painted with a crude face. Trenton: Trenton makes, the world takes. Terre Haute: a truck, just passing through. Texarkana: what do you watch? Tarzana: we all aspire to something. Tahiti: it's all in the code. Tonga: welcome to next year. Teheran: the streets are full of ghosts, pretending to be birds.

Sargasso Sea

Like shellac. Sorrowful lessons there is a season as a sea sounds a cessation. Session is in court, short as a breeze on a ceaseless sea. Silly faces see phases of races, shallow forces for memorial murmurs. These phrases cease to seem full, seem to seize souls. Faceless laces fail the thrushes of the series. Here is the series the cereal herons parries. Ceres, Eros, Ares and Eris select the Susurrus they share with the heroes. Chase a shack, a pallid valis, like shellac.

Rhodesia

The last time I saw Greystoke he had just got back from an expedition to the Lost Gold Mine of the Zambezi. He was running then every fortnight like clockwork, had the crocs plunging on cue and the hippos roaring as the steamer went by, a little excitement with a cordial crowd shaking spears and whatnot, he was making a pretty good living. But things were getting precarious, with the communists and the natives making a fuss, and he was inclined to get out.

He'd developed a taste for gin during his trips back home, quite a prodigious taste to be truthful, and I found him propping up a bar on a back street on Salisbury. Horrible place, but at least it was so dark you couldn't see the lizards.

We got to talking, and it seemed that he had one last scheme. There was this ape. A most talented ape, strong as the dickens and clever. He could talk to the apes, you know. Damned useful skill, got him out of more than one scrape. So he'd been talking to this ape, name of Don, who'd been watching the newsreels and had seen a chance for the two of them to make a bit of coin. Of course America would never do, those that had gone out there had come to a bad end, but Don thought maybe Japan might be a land of opportunity. There had been a big lizard, he'd made a bit of a mess but had gotten popular nonetheless.

As it happened, I knew an Italian chappie who was also trying to make good in the land of the rising sun, and had developed a few contacts. I told Greystone about him, we had a last drink or six, and I went on my way. Out of Africa for good, thank heaven. Of course Don and the Italian fellow did all right, but I never heard anything more of Greystoke. I suppose they cut him out, poor sot.

Qena

The sun is bright, the sun is hot. You can smell the water but you can't see it. You see nothing but bright limitless earth beneath, bright limitless sky above. The water, the living, moving water, it is an invisible presence, the limitless third party just beyond seeing, just beneath the horizon. A blue ribbon in the middle of the earth. Endless this way, endless that way. The life in the midst of. And where life is, time begins. No water no life no time. And here the still form, tongue out, eyes open, beneath a limitless sky, bright sun, hot sun. You can smell it, you can see it. Tongue out. Smiling, you smile. Still life, no life. A tentative sniff. There is no water to be seen. There is no time like the present. No life no water no time. It is still moist.

Philadelphia

There are two cities, and two loves. Augustine proclaimed this truth, but it was up to Christopher Morley to fill in the details. And, like Kitty Doyle, we stand between our two cities and our two loves, which places us, probably, in the neighborhood of Plainfield, New Jersey, or not very distant from the present location of this writer. And it is not clear, not ever, which city, which love, we will ultimately embrace.

But really, to choose that useless Wyn? Unlikely; even if I'd rather be in Philadelphia.

Olympus

It isn't the way it used to be. The mountain is the same, at least it seems so at first, but then it is obvious. It's gotten so ... shabby. All tarnished metal, broken crockery, crumbling plaster. Even the clouds seem less majestic, the Brocken specter seems less spectral, the clear skies less brilliant and the dark ones less terrible. Less terrible, also, the gods who once dominated this peak, drained of ichor and exhausted by the burden of immortality, less deities than curiosities. No powers that the hundred handed beasts below can't duplicate if not improve upon. Apathetic, they watch, they wonder, they fade away. Conquered by the clay they molded.

New London

I guess I would have to walk it again to really remember. Time and memory are such tyrants, they conspire to only let you down corridors that lead nowhere and reveal nothing. On a day like this I would have been going down the hill, possibly begging a ride but more likely walking, even then a walker.

I would have taken Williams Street, and it's odd that I should have forgotten the name of it when I was so well acquainted with it. Past the stores and under the highway, also past the old mill, closer to  the river and the commercial center of town. Bank Street. But I wouldn't have gotten there, not today. It would have been windy and cold, I suppose; I wonder what I smelled. Exhaust, mostly, it would have been too far from the beach to get those smells, the briny ones and the aroma of decay. How long a walk was it, I wonder? Less than an hour, even weighed down with a little luggage and some records.

And then the train station. Richardsonian Romanesque, I learned, and apparently a pretty good example. Inside, though, it was nondescript, and I would have gotten my ticket and sat down to wait.

In a way, I'm still waiting.

Mickewa

Mickewa is ready.

Mickewa is ready for industry. With over twenty miles of paved roads, passable waterways, the potential for air, train, foot and time travel, and neighboring states within hundreds of miles. With population centers fully populated with people. With raw materials more raw than material. With attitude, gumption, and clotted blood: Mickewa is ready!

Mickewa is ready for commerce. With several bank branches. With lax regulation and "friendly" officials. With the nation's largest natural source of debt: Mickewa is ready!

Mickewa is ready for agriculture. From the verdant swamplands of Dismal County to the heartbreaking stone hills of half the state, all of our outdoors is admittedly natural. And most, or some, is theoretically fertile. Again: Mickewa is ready!

Mickewa has long provoked appalled shudders across the nation. Today it is no different, for Mickewa is ready. Are you?

Loveladies

Not one of the footprints is quite like any of the others. The first are vague depressions, shallow simple in the loose sand. Gradually they become more and more distinct, until, in the damp, firm sand, they are images of feet, intaglio. Then they become indistinct again, filling with water from below and fading away. On the rocks they are monochrome prints, no detail, only broad shapes and spatter. And less and less, until no trace is left.

And there are the waves, and three is the sky, and the is the sea. And three is not a footprint to be seen in all of it.

Kabul

It's been the year of sudden death, and it makes me sad. I heard of another one yesterday, a death leaving in its wake not only unfinished business but unstarted. And there's nothing to say, nothing but cliches, platitudes and falsehoods.

And the year started on a similar note, as word came from a friend that her dear friend had been killed in a bomb blast in Kabul. Someone I had never met and now never would, someone responding to the best impulses in human nature and falling victim to the worst, someone irreplaceable and leaving behind not one vacancy but a hundred or a thousand. Potentialities never to be made concrete.

And more sudden deaths, over the year, public ones, private ones, all different, all the same, and finally the year is coming to a close. And there's nothing to say, and I insist on saying it, when I should just respect the skene and shut the hell up.

Jenny Jump

I don't believe the sorry for a minute, how in colonial times an Indian brave crept out of the woods and scared the child Jenny, and she jumped to her death. Like a lot of stories, it lacks originality, though heaven knows real life contains is share of clichéd and hackneyed narratives, more often it is characterized by the unexpected, the bizarre detail, the anticlimax, the loose end. But Jenny Jump it is, and the traditional explanation of the name will have to do. It's not that far from here and I have never been. I suspect it's quite lovely and serene, the empty peace after the leap and before the crash. I think it would be nice to take her there some day, as long as she doesn't jump. Of course I also want to take her to the marble museum in Nebraska, and there is no explaining that.

Ilion

Yet aged Priam, rich in courage, mounted up
The battlements of Troy, his daughter,
Cursed Cassandra, at his side.
And there before him spread the wreckage of his land,
Set ablaze and crumbling in the dark.
The scurrying Myrmidons, like ants, ventured to and fro,
Raising their war cries as they plagued
The outskirts of the city, famed Troy.
The last Trojans were taken to the sword
And spewed black blood as they gave up the ghost
And descended in a troop to twilit Hades;
And Priam hid his face, and wept.

Honolulu

I am an alien and an invader; and I am legion. I am furtive and I lurk in the shadows, but I am ravenous and aggressive. I am indifferent to everything that I cannot exploit.

I came here and saw a peaceful, temperate landscape, azure skies, azure seas, islands of milk and honey. And, more to the point, I saw waste, debris, detritus, sewage, garbage and shit. I made myself at home.

You can pursue me, but you will never eradicate me.

Gretna Green

On the maps of our places, the border we see is an imaginary indication, which has not any comparable representation in the world of our experiences; and, likewise, on the maps of our lives, though the counties labeled Childhood, Youth, Adulthood, Age are marked out and their borders shown, yet, when we walk through the hills and forests of our days, the transitions are indistinct and we arrive at these new places only gradually and without fully leaving the lands of the past: and so, there are a few stations, opportunistically placed at the border, like Gretna Green, to mark the passage and extent their tolls. You have crossed over; the past is gone; you can not go back.

Fort-de-France

The island of Martinique was founded by the Warner brothers in 1942, when they were strongly encouraged by their successful colonization of Casablanca, in North Africa. A harbor was constructed of sufficient depth to float a smallish boat, which have way to an indistinct lagoon standing on for a formidable sea.

Martinique boasts a hotel, with bar, piano, two rooms, and a cellar. There is also a shack for fugitives to hide in, and perhaps a police station. The island is populated primarily by American actors, with a few European exiles not nearly so well known. Martinique has a robust economy; the primary industries are recreational boating, smuggling, musical entertainment, gunfire, and comical alcoholism.

The island has been much less accessible since the decline of broadcast television, but on years past it could be regularly observed on weekday afternoons or late at night.

Elfland

They say Thomas closed the door to Elfland when he went back there. Certainly in the last seven hundred years or so, nobody had found the way there; or, to be more accurate, nobody has found the way back. Thomas went to Elfland and came back, and before him, Orpheus, if that is where Orpheus went. There is more than one country where the door only works one way.

If this is the case, then it is possible that there are many doors to Elfland, perhaps a vast or even infinite number, all open, admitting many, releasing none. The mysterious country on the other side, of which we know nothing, the country whose border is everywhere, and everywhere invisible, welcomes the stranger but welcomes him irreversibly.

Dresser Junction

There is the depot, but three hasn't been any passenger service in years. A freight train goes through one in a while. Most of us don't think much about going anywhere, anyway; the ones that wanted to go, they went. Maybe we all want to go somewhere else, a little, but after a while the days just kind of trickle away, and just moving around here, it seems like the chance to go just slips away. Over and over. We went all sorts of places in the old days, back when there was passenger service, but now you just see a freight train every now and then and it just rolls on through. Sometimes we won't about the places they go, but not enough to find a way to them. That's the depot right over there. Used to be we had trains coming through all the time. Not any more.

Centauri

The inhabitants of Alpha Centauri have no words for "seven" or "eight"; when they count they say, "One, two, three, four, five, six, six, six, nine, ten." Generally, however, they don't count for much.

Alpha Centaurians speak with heavy Russian accents and closely resemble small dachshunds. Because of this comical and lovable appearance, they were able to stealthily infiltrate our former planet and gradually enslave its population.

They can breathe under alcohol but have been unable, alas, to teach this skill to humans. Every Centaurian can play the theremin. They send a spaceship from their planet every year to collect their tribute from Earth, which consists of the fingernail and toenail clippings of the entire human population. These are returned to the home planet, where they are considered a delicacy, sautéed with just a hint of coriander.

Bouvet

I was there the day the sun came out at Bouvet. In fact I was not really there, but only on a wretched ship within sight of its ice-bound coast (and in fact I was not even there, since this is an entirely fabricated reminiscence), but I witnessed it from there, queasily, frigidly (I did not, I imagined it, comfortably and warmly). How fully, on that brief moment, the island was transformed! The dull monochrome picture of dirty ice and churning, turbulent water was pierced by a brilliant beam, a for a short time the landscape was overtaken by a mystery that was almost like color, almost like beauty. Then the sun was hidden again and the island returned to its hellish peace.

Antioch

Seventeen years later, she looked out of her life and saw the ruins. Walls, windows, carpet, draperies, furnishings and decorations, all impeccable, immaculate, brilliant. So brilliant they shimmered. And outside a landscape without blemish, groomed and curried and massaged to perfection. Wind and water, tree and sky shimmering. And all at once it faded and crumbled and was nothing but ashes under ashes under ashes. Things has never been more beautiful.

Passing Fairness

There is nothing left to write about, nothing to say. The day is an ocean with neither surf nor tide. Every place is a familiar place, every face a mirror. The books have all been read and learned and refuted. The news is not new, there is no new thing. The bread is stale, the beer flat, the wine water. There are many worlds and they are all the same. The spirits are dead but empty bodies walk the ways. It is a sickly world, wrapped in a clear fog. And from a low hanging naked branch: a new song.