Transcript
Martin Wong
Sewer Goddess
Sewer Goddess
A Martin Wong Fairytale
It was bright early in the morning when
Smoke still hung in the sky + grass green
Green in the streets. No school Today. But
Just the same, not enough kids for a game
of stick ball. It was Sonny Riff’s Ball. The
Dog belonged to Funky Walker. Sonny
Never went anywhere without his ball. It
was pretty scroungy by now, even bald in
spots. Funky never went anywhere without
his dog Mike who was pretty scroungy
himself, even bald in spots. So here they were
playing in the bright yellow sun, playing
against an old brick wall when all of a sudden
Sonny missed + Mike went to fetch, but the
Dog, being blind in one eye + not very swift
at that, kicked the ball when he thought he
had it + into the sewer the old ball bounced.
So Sonny runs up to the edge + reaching down
After it, black greasy waters swallowing
Him down down down…10,000 years away
From the frantic echoes calling him back.
Down he submarines. First still tight around
the ball: Down thru the tangled silence of
tepid pools. Down thru weird glimmerings of
underwater dream worlds swimming past
dawn thru the choked sewage of forgotten
memories. Down past the ringing of other
voices dripping pearly irredescent. Down in
to a night without stars he drifts weightless
+ alone…rolled in a deepsea embrace few
ever imagine + fewer yet remember.
Then smiling cool in every way who be it but
She: Come gliding out of the void like a tiny
wonder working time capsule it was she
come gliding in + out of dreams from sleep
to sunlight + back again: out of sight
out of mind + into the void again.
After following her thru an eternity, finally
Focused in on her + stood there face to face
it was then that he noticed the tangle closing
in on him in a clot. In the sudden fear of a
trapped animal thrashed out to escape: the
mess only getting thicker from the struggle
the marshmellow only absorbing the frenzy
tried to yell out thru the strangulating glut
but couldn’t find the words. she only smiles
+ with the first few notes her song begins:
spreading like the cold lace of decay thru the
autumn ground, eazing his mind as he
forgot the net that no longer held in his
mind following the luminous smoke of her
melody as it grew: upward + outward,
downward + inward: growth building out
of a simple pattern, accident + the winds of
experience weaving endless variations: decay
exposing unseen facets of its structure her
song the simple look of growth + decay
forming + reforming an endless universe of
change + from this primal beat: the complex
rhythms of their dance swaying in the pulse
of the tides + the wind thru the trees +
the beat of the sun + the song of our love
her love one love.
So it was here that he met her wrapped in
shimmerings of silver seaweed + fell enchanted
by her music. they never spoke
for days at a time she strummed her love
guitar as she sat watching him play handball
against the dark sewer wall. Sonny was only
ten + she: hardly grown herself. Too young
for love, but the love grew anyway as their
heartbeats entwined in the thread of her song
meeting together into a single throbbing
organism in which universes collide + galaxies
erupt + worlds come into being. Then pulling
away, he dives in again full force, spinning down
corridors of her mind, ripping down veils of
mystery in his wake, + in the depths of her
smile: unearthly visions of lost kingdoms
drowned in the arms of a flaming sea reveal
themselves to him in all their ancient terror,
+ so it happened one night as he was passing
thru her he came upon a medicine man with a
tale to tell + the tale he told was of a girl who
sang alone by the sea: a girl pure as rain +
just as mindless whose loneliness turned in upon
itself with all the twisted hunchbacked ravings
of a virgin’s dreams, finally driving her over
the edge + into the relentless sea below,
+ the girl whose tale he told was none other
than the very same sewer goddess in whom
Sunny had discovered the rhythms of love.
“Gosh…well sure she aint exactly what you’d
call normal. But I can dig it.”
But I warn you: Stay now + you stay forever.
There’ll be no escape
“So who wants to escape? I’m happy as it is”
Then if you must decide, at least see her
as she really is.
“Like what do you mean?”
Twilight shadows weren’t what they seemed
Midnight delusions fade like a dream
in the light of the morning sun.
But then it didn’t really seem to matter all
that much + so he just let it go at that
till it happened one day as they were swimming
out together towards the ocean caves: out of
the sewer + into the open sea past swarms of
crabs + schools of fish gliding free.
“No Sonny! Not up there!!!”
“It’s ok. You’ll like it up there for a change. It’s
bright + warm. You’ll like it. You really will.
Just wait + see.”
But she only struggles to turn back.
Still he holds, swimming straight for the
surface where sunlight plays the foamy
sea…already he could see the light
dancing above him. It’s been such a long
time + he’d forgotten how good it felt.
Then as the first rays struck, she lets out
one last cry, turning into what she’d been
all the time: a tangled clot of garbage:
just some hanks of hair + seaweed.
Too late.
Up he floats ever upward surfacing purple
green + bloated sand crabs crawling in
his hair. Eels writhing in his rotting flesh,
drifting aimlessly fermenting in the sun
as waves pass thru him + as he drifts,
who could ever guess the dreams he
might’ve dreamed in those last few moments
as he drowned beneath the city streets so
very long ago…
June 22 1967