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Crew serves hollow vessel produce, fuel-tank fed so full intake exceeds capacity, solid interior nearly bursts from strain. Inflatable tent, sprouting bulb, pre-hatched egg. Pressed weak spot gives way, fragment broken loose cast off, crash landing. Side hole blown out; open-wound gapes; cracked, splitting, ever wider. Sprung leak discharges contents kept and held captive and saved (sentenced to earning interest towards payoff) in storage; everything’s let go of, sent forth; spillage poured downwards, molten, flowing, wept, bled, lost, free.

Vacant shell becomes hunger-striker left to run on empty-stomach once more; deflating balloon implodes; collapsing, spent, flat. Shrapnel shards and dropped parachute sheeting cover entire ground; strewn, outstretched, spread, stuck. Terrain rises, parting, but soon sunk back and closed again. So, oil-slick membrane and debris crop gets swallowed then grown over by pavement and floorboards, fallen and cleared forest, river banks and bed, beach shore and desert sands. However, absorption, drowning and burial is not the end, instead sown and planted substance and power survive and increase far underneath and deep inside.

Meanwhile, down below, energy, presence, matter and life-forms wait, patiently calm yet expectant, frozen, stirring, dormant, poised, set, ready. Much later on, surface erupts, shattered, splintering. Submerged gardens, coral reefs and precious minerals come up for air. Scattered water-features refresh sore and aching numbness; made clean, given health, brought alive. Finally, these new arrivals breathe both ways; their combined aura, force-field, clouds, mist and halo burnt, shone, glowing and beamed around them.

©Douglas Park

Originated for and first appeared in The Mix, edited by Christian Egger, Manuel Gorkiewicz, Christian Mayer, Yves Mettler, Magda Tothova, Ruth Weismann & Alexander Wolff, Zeitschrift, Vienna, 2008