The Tall Whites & Others. Print

I hope this isn't a test. Laugh out Loud. The street vibes state that it might be - & wistfully wise they are. I've never been very good at tests. I would rather look out the window - escape as often as I could. It was against everything I later learned that I could be. I was shocked to find that I could sing. I could write. I could draw. It didn't require validation - although I thought it did. I could walk amongst the tombs of the Necropolis in Glasgow. There I found Egypt - Rome - Constantinople - Budapest in stone and granite pediments. I knew all the quiet ways through the city - like a fox. The exact times when few were on the streets - watching human behavioral patterns. I just wanted peace. To rest awhile. To be left alone with the dead. Well there is no time there. It is so still and quiet. Although we insolently laughed at the world and its ridiculous assertions at times. We already hated its shit stained drudgery and pious venom. And all the mundane things which made us want to die again. To watch a city die. It seemed to die as she did.. A former place that was alive and vibrant and seemed to know her well. It valued her. She was special. I tried to hold onto it as best I could - to hold what they destroyed as being sacred to me and to her. But it is mostly gone now. So I failed. I was 12. But we still laugh at times - it is so insolent to do so. A defiant marker of the human soul against the world. Laugh....smile.... I dare you to. (robert kelly.)