fandomtownies | Friday Night at the NPC all night diner

Friday Night at the NPC all night diner

[On the edge of the npc district is a diner CJ's never gone to before. After movies with Ten and Adam, she was restless. SHe walks through the snow, looking at how the town is putting on its holiday face, and then ducks in for coffee and cherry pie. She pulls out the collected works of Pablo Neruda, and reads.]

((Thesis is done, migraine is gone, someone play with me!))

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Jonathan's not feeling tired and so, decides to go for a walk. When he ends up at the NPC all night diner, he figures it's never to late for pie and goes inside.

[She looks up and smiles. It's hard not to like Jonathan. He's so good looking and he's been so kind in therapy. She lays her book down and waves.] Mr. Crane.

Jonathan sees CJ wave to him, the diner isn't exactly crowded this late at night so with a smile, he heads over.

"Hello CJ," he says, removing his coat, "may I sit with you?"

Of course. Please. [She pushes the chair out with her foot.] What are you doing out so late?

"Couldn't sleep, I went for a walk and ended up here and now I'm glad I did. What are you up to?" he asks folding his hands in front of him.

I'm reading this. [She shows him her book, the collected works of Pablo Neruda] I've been sending love poems to people. He's fantastic, have you ever read him?

"It's been brought to my attention in recent months that my literary knowledge is woefully inadequate," he tells her, "Tell me about it."

He's genuinely interested in what CJ has to say, attentively waiting for her to speak.

[Opening to a random page, she begins to read.]

Nothing But Death

There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.

Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.

But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.

Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.

Jonathan listens to the poem, watching CJ curiously, wondering if CJ's more attentive than he gave her credit for or if it's coincidence.

"I like: the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses, awesome imagery," he says, and then adds, "kind of disturbing imagery, but it definately makes you see it. Might I ask what has you in a poetry mood?"

Love. Neruda's love poetry is so...visceral. Imagery. You know, these are translations. He writes in Spanish. But he takes even the most mundane and ordinary things and makes them utterly beautiful. Here...[She looks in the front, then flips to another, reading softly.]

Ode To Wine

Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.

My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.

But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.

Isn't that...fabulous?

Jonathan blushes because, okay meaybe CJ was his patient, and had a fantastic set of legs, bit she was still a teacher! and it just seemed... wrong to hear one say... that.

"I umm," he swallows, "I definately see hwat you mean about imagery, yes," he tells her with a nod.

Want to hear another one? [She takes a bite of pie, watching him blush. Neruda had that effect on her too...even now.]

"If you want to," he says nervously running his hand through his hair, "How did the people you sent the poems to like them?"

[Smiling softly] They liked them. Sometimes poetry expresses what your heart says and you can't get your mouth to quite say, you know? Here, like this. This is the best interpretation of grief, bringing in the four stages...

Ode to Sadness

Sadness, scarab
with seven crippled feet,
spiderweb egg,
scramble-brained rat,
bitch's skeleton:
No entry here.
Don't come in.
Go away.
Go back
south with your umbrella,
go back
north with your serpent's teeth.
A poet lives here.
No sadness may
cross this threshold.
Through these windows
comes the breath of the world,
fresh red roses,
flags embroidered with
the victories of the people.
No.
No entry.
Flap
your bat's wings,
I will trample the feathers
that fall from your mantle,
I will sweep the bits and pieces
of your carcass to
the four corners of the wind,
I will wring your neck,
I will stitch your eyelids shut,
I will sew your shroud,
sadness, and bury your rodent bones
beneath the springtime of an apple tree.

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Friday Night at the NPC all night diner

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