Port town, Honduras 10-10-74
Listening to classical music on the little transistor radio I bought yesterday. Sitting in candlelight darkness, my lonely pants hanging from a nail by the window (the same pants I wore when they took me to jail in British Honduras- but that’s another story.) Outside it’s pouring rain and I’m thinking the whole world is under water empty and hopeless. I dunno. Maybe I like it that way sometimes. This feeling, comfortable-sad; entirely different from the truly depressing feeling of total despair I got when the ship pulled into this port at first light two days ago and I got a look at the dead industrial wasteland of the docks and the foggy horrible green hills and meadows across the bay. Feeling totally alone and even now when I’ve grown accustomed to this place and even comfortable here, somehow these hills make me feel empty and bad when I look out past the ships and see them over there and know they’ll still be there when I’m dead, grave-rot green and peaceful and horrible. I remember how I almost cried looking across the bay that first damp morning. Aw well, fuck them fuckin hills anyway. Now it’s late at night and I’m sitting at my little desk in my little room by the railroad tracks across from the docks full of ships, big booming monsters from far away, China and Londontown. It’s raining hard and I’m content for now with this happy/sad feeling. Like this classical music I’m hearing now. I don’t need to listen to lively Latino ritmo or go out and get drunk and dance with the girls in the street. I’m just happy right now with my candlelight and my little radio playing sad-static sounds in the endless rain.
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 1974, 2010