Karnak Wanderlust

Inspired by a trip to a place that you've never heard of, and what happened along the way.

The wanderlust returned,
almost deadly so,
he couldn't bear
another day of
traversing the same route
between the place called Sparta
and the placed called Double Null,
so he opted for the offbeat path,
the path that could knock the
wheels out of alignment,
but did that really matter to him?

Most likely not.

So he went south,
into the territory where
the phonetic alphabet
had a Peruvian bent to it,
looking for the one rocky
path that would take him
to his destination, the place
that was named for the place
where the Theban Triad
was openly worshiped.

The place called Karnak.

Along the path
numbered with the
factors of binary
and bad luck, he
saw a particular
reminder in the distance,
the one of the day where
his muse Synchronicity
b***h-slapped him
upside the head
a few dozen times,
and so he took a
photograph to remember
that occasion, the one
where he crossed
under the Hi-Line
for possibly the last time,
and maybe for future reference.

Some time later,
down along the
southern horizon,
crates labeled Maersk
and Hyundai floated
ethereally past a
steel tower like a caravan
in the Sahara Desert passing
an oasis and then he knew,
he knew he found Karnak,
and so he drove to a road
labeled with the eighth prime
number and proceeded south,
until he saw the lost beacon,
the lost lighthouse that
beamed black light into
the hearts, minds
and souls of the non-apocalyptic,
labeled with the letter holding the
position with factors for
good luck and binary and the
number that is the square
of man's eternal imperfection,
and he remembered that he
was in the territory of
his namesake, November Zero.

While this was occurring, the
radio echoed platitudes, accusations
and exhortations against the
imperfect philosophies of man
but these were of a Baptist flavor,
yet he knew the exorcist would
make the same statements about
agnosticism, pluralism, polytheism
and humanism from his pulpit.

And so he photographed
the black light beacon and
continued toward Karnak,
realizing that the physical
would remain after the
corporeal ceased existing.

He made it further south
and photographed the steel spire,
like the black light beacon, after
crossing the main steel connection
between Chicago and Seattle,
because his wanderlust took him there
and he wondered if a divine hand
pushed him there to make
the oasis connection for himself.

Karnak is the water stop,
the oasis for old trains
on the Northern Transcon
that traverse the great desert
of the Northern Great Plains,
as Jesus is the oasis in the
great desert of life.

And the Baptist firebrand
talked about his four favorite
philosophical punching bags
in terms of loose gravel
and car accidents, all this
while he was meandering
toward the fortieth chapter in
the Book of November Zero,
another black light beacon in
the great desert of human life,
but that part was being by
somebody else.

Of course, November Zero
is a humanistic philosophy,
just like the physical,
emotional, and mental
wanderlust, and maybe
the visit to Karnak
was worth it after all.

He also thought it would be
hilarious if the town on the creek
would fall in if the erosion coefficient
rose a few more steps with or without
the help of a divine hand, since a
human hand would likely be cause of that
forthcoming scenario.

Or is that just icing on the cake
he was allowed to eat?

This only occurs when the
free-floating, conscious-streaming,
diarrhea-mouth-spewing wanderlust
is sated fully, completely,
absolutely, and truly.

And so it came to pass,
so what a better way
to spend a Sunday Morning,
instead of coming down from
a high that could make
Kris Kristofferson green with envy
since the Karnak wanderlust
met its maker.

Reviews

[JimmyFlux]

This is neat. Definitely requires a slow read to be fully absorbed. Good work.

[TJ]

Very descriptive! I'll be honest, some of the references were lost on me and I'll hav to reread this once or twice or ten times haha. What I can say for now is the vivid descriptions and the almost enigmatic way of painting the scene kept me
Enthralled throughout the piece

[Neva Flores Smith - Cha..]

A fascinating piece about a journey back in time.......