A shade of darkness moves through night and slinks from the moon, by both atom and the lightness of desert air it swam through dark waters
Inside our lights oscillated with the fickle cries of our reactor, to our course we stayed true
Across the sky we glided steadfast, pilot downing sterile powdered coffee, our unbuttoned shirts drowning in sweat and jackets laying unwanted on steel floors
On a yellow pad I filled in the last of my free space with the time and a status report; the clerk begins his typing to transcribe it
10/25/64, 9:04 PM, 40°39’04N 115°38’53W, filling the header on a fresh page
The word processor ceases and I hear the telltale noise of another wasted sheet of paper added to our file
Rank with odor and dense with cigarette smoke, I find solace within the gondola by the device attached to our reel-to-reel
Eyes closed to the fluorescents, the surveilled provide my escape into their hazy world by whisper as I drift in between their discussions
“If it’s true what we’ve read, they know we know-”
“We see them too, and they’re listening to every word-”
“I don’t dig the sort of line you’re putting down-”
“We are the dreamers, and it is they who seeks to wake us from this world-”
Impotent hostilities; yet we cannot return home
for some dream of revolt may grow from the barren veins of the world
Some conspiracy of vast design, hope for a world without the sort of folk who swim with the moon, who keep tabs and drown in transcripts
And it must not come to pass.
I adjust the dials and shift the listener northwest
The crackling of a microphone, steps on a hastily assembled wooden platform
“-and this is a new piece I’ve been cooking up, I call it Drinking Rose”
And while baseball games were won, children were born into a world innocent, we waited for the Ruskies to put their fingers on the button while we held ours close, while budgets were debated, the lonely drank, the priests gave homilies in their parishes, new towns were brought forth from dust, while my clerk transcribed each sheet and I sat silent
From the rusted horn of a saxophone, rising above the world, I heard the most beautiful song.
— GROZNY is a Floridian surrealist writer and hobbyist music maker with a penchant for Jazz-Rock, amateur pursuits of all kinds, and dreams of endearing his writing to peculiar people the internet over. He uploads writings at https://grozny1992.itch.io/ which is somewhat frequently updated with new works, while also working on his book LONGTIME SUNSHINE (to be released at a currently unknown date)