NIGHT FERRY


NIGHT FERRY


11 P.M.
New York Harbor

behind us
the Manhattan Galaxy
the absolute center of
every New Yorker's
spiritual cosmology

before us
Staten Island's
low lost horizon
dozing in modest
suburban shade

below us
a drowsy Poseidon
too buzzed from smoking
some really boss seaweed
to rock our weary boat

We lean
against the deck railing
a pint of Smirnoff and
the North Atlantic wind
keeping our faces awake
as we watch thousands of
sharp little star teeth
eat the waning moon

Weed
looking quite dapper
in his new trenchcoat
and snap brim fedora 

Gabriel's
gray woolen cloak
enveloping his bulk like
an invocation to everything

Droplets
of whitewater spray clinging
to the fringe of my Grandpa's
old deerskin jacket

Gabriel hands me the bottle
I take another pull
It tastes warm
warm as my youth

"Sparrow" Gabriel asks me

"Yea"

"Do you see it?"

"Yea"

"What do you see?"

"See what?"

"See what you said you saw
when I asked if you saw it"

"Oh yea"

"So what color is it?"

"Where?"

"Out there!"

He points at a lot of
little white dots
houses I suppose
"What color is
the island's aura?"

I shrug "I don't see auras"

"Damn..." He exhales
a plume that would drop
a seagull at twenty yards

Lately
some of the City's
Ceremonial Magicians

-the folks who brought us
Merlin and Levi and Crowley
and Elvis in Outer Space-

had been
fretting or fighting
or vexed or hexed
rather more than usual
over certain exotic
demonic entities
rebellious spirits
malevolent minions
overdue books from
the Akashic Library
or whatever it was
that they happened to
dig up from The Pit
for fun and profit

So now we sail toward
Gabriel's innocent Island
tract neighborhood
where we will slip into
a studio cramped with
books and dusty artifacts
to light gnarled candles
trade portentous gossip
eat leftover Chinese

and I imagine
pay the Other Side
a social call

Weed
commandeers the bottle
twisting its neck
between two fingers of
an oiled leather glove
before taking it up

"The ability to accurately perceive
auras is contingent upon astrally
based psionic talents and arcane
knowledge the development of which
depends largely upon a rigorous and
meditative discipline requiring many
years of painstaking ritual study"

Unlike the rest of us
starving Seekers of Light
Weed lives off a very tidy
trust fund

"So what are you
getting at?" Gabriel mutters 

"So your young friend here is just too
much of a party boy to see anything on
the ocean tonight except perhaps for
your occasional sea cow and we may
regret taking him with us as we do
battle with these Chthonic forces which
even now threaten to descend upon our
city with their seductive blasphemies
and consume us all until we are forced
to serve as mere minions in their damned
perfidious schemes for world domination"

"Hey guys" I cut in
tightening my drunk's
grip on the railing

"I'm just a simple Rock'n'Roll Pagan who
likes to search for my enlightenment on
a more physical plane you know stuff
like Sacred Orgies of Spring invoking
the stoned spirit of Jim Morrison and
if I stumble into too much wisdom maybe
the occasional sacrifice to the Porcelain
God that's all and really I'm just with
you boys because I haven't reached the
end of desire and sometimes My Lady of
Bad Advice says hey boy that's just as
well and I figure that this ferry's just
got to take me somewhere more important
than where I've been and Weed yes I did
read those paperback occult books you
loaned me and don't forget I bought us
the Chinese"

We three kings
swaying together to
the waves within our skulls

Gabriel
reaches for the bottle
thinks better of it
lights a cigarette
sucks in a preternaturally
long drag

"Damn..."

But a rising wind
swallows his curse
while the Old Woman
still holds aloft Her
cool torch for the ferry
plowing through waves of
Aura and Ether and Zodiac
to the Island
and the Hour of
our Dark Dreams
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