Oxford Journal
July 12 2022 | Dusk | *On the block at the entrance of the Ashmolean Museum
This is not the beginning, and it surely isn’t the end. my journey transcends the spine and the binding. my mission surpasses the hook. the song of my life has not a structure recognizable to the maestro, nor the choir, nor the rook.
I’ve made it to Oxford. the greatest. the grand. and onward I go to the next. for a star once exploded does not disappear. it splits into trillions. it fizzles for eons. it spans across the universe. even into the abyss.
Stars are beings that sparkle everlasting. sticking them in a jar just won’t do. even if you missed the light show tonight, the darkness always comes, bringing with it something new.
July 13 | 12:21 AM | Capricorn Full Moon
And everything was perfect. For it all gleamed in the light of the moon. The sky lacey and silver. Why do you cry full moon? For a little streak of cloud breaks the horizontal veil you wear and hangs down below you. Do you cry because all that you made is illuminated finally, and the lovers dancing in the garden are exposed, and the gargoyles prancing on the roofs are bare, and you can see it all before you? Or do you cry for everything that is light now is timid, so used to being in the dark?
You need not cry, unless in the name of Beauty. For you, our Moon Mother, are the most beautiful of all. In fact, I cry from the garden, I weep from the roof, I write from this window, for you.
July 14 | 5:48 PM | *On the steps of the Bodleian across from the Weston
And everything was perfect. For I had found a delicious lemonade. The pursuit of one has been ongoing and wild. The taste of the lemon is lacking in Oxford, along with the right amount of fizz. Though this is organic, and calls itself “Karma.” An energy drink nonetheless. I’ll take it. From Leon’s. The ‘realest’ fast food. Its logo a horn-blaring cherub. What could be realer than that?
The book I am reading was a recommendation from the sweet book boy on my mind. I am heading to Blackwell’s right after this to see what others light a spark in my eye. Does this make me greedy? Or simply a scholar? Or merely a citizen of the place? For I will give up an hour and lay down my life to have the smell of new book on my face. Rest assured I have time for other casualties, trailing along at a book-reader’s pace. For it is all perfect, these moments in Oxford, recorded, wrapped up, in their case.
July 16 | 2:22 AM | “An Incantation of the Moonlight Dancer”
This is the sensation they speak of. This is the ecstasy they crave. The moon’s light balms my wounds. Though she wears her Sunday lace, her Beauty bears multitudes. I am invited to their wedding in the sky. The gold moon and night of silver shall shroud these lands in Sleep. Sleep and Peace in these gothic towers. Along these renaissance walls.
Sleep and Peace!
Dark, sensual matter sprinkled all over the night. For we were born from the darkness. Here we are most at bay. This window my portal. My lover. My friend. My Sleep. My Peace. My eternal guidance up above. Hold me in your Sunday lace and trace my body’s route. For all the nights I give to you, you never cease to come out.
July 17 | 3:16 PM | *In that Bookstore, the Jazz Band is playing
Something about jazz makes me want to write Romance. Romance with a capital R. Lovers in question: the trumpet and I. Maybe the blues and my boogie down blood. They groove. I don’t know what it is but I know how to write about it. You know what I mean. You know how to read it. Jazz is the writing, body the music. A sensory symphony I very much adore.
July 21 | A love letter to the Radcliffe Camera : [a sonnet]
A sense of it occurring dawns on me
For I have been beside you all this time
You struck the languid chord at morning tea
The midnight toll the soundtrack of our crime
For you are my landmark
You are my shrine
You are the motor of this literary rhyme
Within your hollow corpse I find my chamber
I trail along and pick at stories told
I make a ghostly home in your intestines
Haunting readers young and lovers old.