Continued from here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-ninth-series-part-3/ (http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-ninth-series-part-3/)
xxvi. Unexplainable Spasm
I was told first, given my task when
I had none, when I was nothing.
Another face among leaves & trees. Too many
years chasing good ass & then whatever ass.
Too many explanations. Too much time.
The voice in my head, I was hungry,
lightheaded, pills for meals, pills for sleep.
The voice, a young boy's or a girl's, humming
at first, draw me in lure my mind. Look about,
city crowds, we exist to each other by news
only our skins & sniffs know. Nothing. The voice
sang louder, moved me from brownstones &
cobblestones to a park, a bench without light.
"Would you like to do something beautiful?
Would you like to save the world?
Would you like to feel like the stones,
the streams, the wind among nameless things?"
I nodded to this madness, or open door.
Nodded & was led back in time, my own times,
my canvases, unfinished, I saw them now,
saw what they should be, painted & painted,
the voice singing, singing, its light, my path,
on & on, it would have been enough,
I ate bread & cheese again, scattered happy kisses.
"Would you like to do something beautiful?
Would you like to save the world?"
I nodded & knew there had to be more.
The canvases became other, developed
a within, a toward, faces, singly
at first but then I saw how they were a group,
the tall windows of my chamber let in stars
& moons & something between them, madness
or open door, I nodded, the same faces,
canvas after canvas, woods, pale woods,
the sea, knowing, near, the Island,
of course the Island. Always the Island.
Always the Gate.
"Would you like to do something beautiful?
Would you like to save the world?"
I nodded, & drew us together, at last.
Each found the canvas I made for him,
in his time & place, studied it, dreamed it
day & night until known better than
the common light, better than brain,
body, beat, breath, knew it & stepped through.
There we were together, our ship, the sea
& more sea. Morning. Waking in a cluster,
a herd, a batch of wondering faces. What next?
Time to do something beautiful.
Time to save the world.
They knew, these found brothers, that I
had brought them here. Called me
the Magician but I shook it off. Urged me
paint our path, our enemies, beautiful women
to find & dance with. Shook it off
worse. There is only the Island. There is only
the Gate. My sole canvas aboard that ship
showed not the what nor where of our task
but how it would bind us better, break us finally.
They gathered. Laughed. Then less. New vows.
I made us curl together, again, the night
before we arrive the Island. Every man
another's hand to his lips, his breast.
Someone laughed. Another shushed.
We sailed unknown seas of stars, & songs
of boys & girls wished & washed our minds.
Night passed. Coming home, coming home.
We ranged the Island for days,
the stories don't tell this, it wasn't
a single day's conquest, we were brave,
we were less so, the Gate humbled us
before it would be found. Farther & farther
from the world, lost in mystic pale woods
until I listened, begged a little, & listened,
& led us the remaining way.
The Gate is not of this world & our skills
& tricks & strong hands did us no good.
The paths walled by vines & stones hurried
& pushed us, no pause, no food, never quite
night to rest. We came, straggled, crowded
before the cave of the Beast. Words gone
as each of us entered the cave, & was consumed.
Consumed us, singly, & then in all, & I felt
the stones, I felt the promised streams,
I let go, & more, & all, & now the wind
among nameless things. I nodded, smiled,
did not return, my brothers, now I am
become the canvas upon which you will
do something beautiful. I grant you this music,
burden you this song. I don't know if you can,
but you will try & save the world.
******
xxvii. The Gypsy Girl
Among the adventures the one we never spoke,
the girl in the graveyard & she was possibly dead,
but we each had of her & were less & more.
We had sailed toward the Island for years
without discovering sight of it. The books read,
the shamans drunk with, the myth held no live bones.
A tavern to loose it, put down the weapons &
too many maps. We ranged to different new
companions & pursuits. New smells in the nose.
"You're the Dreamwalker," she said to me,
young, pretty, but a scar, but a limp,
scarves of many sigils, cards on her table, a crystal.
I nod. Briefly imagine licking her scar, her everywhere,
then take my drink. My friend's new brew.
"The Island's a dreamer. It dreams the world."
"We walk outside, I don't tell my brothers.
She sniffs of blue fire, too too blue, &
leads me to a graveyard. We lay among effaced stones.
I don't reach for her as I ought, or might,
but she gazes the stars & sings me a song.
I sleep. Dream of warm blood on a fallen tree.
I find her while looking for the Dreamwalker.
She smiles, & I tense. Bids me sit with her
among a cluster of stones. Some say only "from." Some only "to."
"You lay with men & women both?" I nod.
She curls into me, her hands soft,
curious, benign. "The chasm won't be breached.
"The painter joins us, remarks the moonlight,
the shadows. She slips from her scarves & skirts
& bids him portray her, portray us together.
We twine for my friend & he draws with
a shaky hand, shakes his head, cannot
render, & goes. She seems to follow, without her clothes.
My brothers are scattered & here is a naked woman
in a graveyard. She is scared, limps, scarred
but beautiful. I cover her with my cloak.
Now on an ancient bench near the graveyard's gate,
she calms, pushes my cloak plainly aside.
Urges my hands upon her. "There is no time."
I turn from my games of pegs & chance
& find only our youngest brother remains.
"They've gone with the gypsy," he says, thin-voiced.
But she's where she's been all night, at her table,
her cards, her crystal. Bids me sit. I nod.
"My cards know more than your plants," she says.
"That may be true. But my plants don't lie."
Her smile rings & rings of power, enough
to dance in partner, enough to burn worlds.
Our youngest brother goes to look for the rest
& I watch her follow. He'd drunk what I'd given
him first. No time for lies. So many beautiful truths.
I find each of us disarrayed as though
strong, fine, dirty sex but strangely no sate.
We gather ourselves finally before morning's first light.
Nobody knew of the gypsy at the tavern
that morning, the scarves & skirts we found
in the graveyard were colorless scraps.
Our ship a refuge from that night & what
it told us. We could search for the Island perpetually,
or sacrifice all, finally, each other, & it would reveal.
******
xxviii. Builds the Kingdom (Part 1)
We lay twined abed, as we have from
our first night, & you press me again,
smiling blue stars in the velvet space between us,
what brought me back, & with my bond
of strong brothers, how was it so?
You'd known your own fate from a child.
First a girl bleeds she is chosen by one
or another. They fight, they trade,
one beds me after they drink & hug,
maybe they share me that night
as a mark of friendship. Each vying
to make me moan more helplessly,
cry & beg.
So your sister had told you, & aunts,
& your own mother with not enough words,
& tears. "It's hard on them, this life.
They need to be brutal to us. It compensates."
She knew such words & their ideas too,
but died like none of it mattered.
Just the hairy bit between her legs &
his need for compensation.
"Then you came." I smile. I'd almost forgotten
the scattered tribes of this region. We came
on a clue of the Island. But people knew me.
They remembered me. "And everyone thought
I'd come with a mission of union. My brothers
liked it better than I did. They convinced me."
"No. I did." I smack her ass. I could find
this flesh candy in the silence of the seas.
"Tell me." "I dreamed you." "Dreamed?"
"It seemed of no consequence, a man's
yearn who's smelled other men's loins
too close too long." "It wasn't." "No."
Our first night's camp was near where
I'd been a boy. Some remembered, welcomed
me, us, but some didn't. I saw you at camp
& I'd never seen such terror in a girl's eyes.
Such hopelessness. "I told my brothers
to keep the men busy, all night, drink
& fight them, again & again."
"You wouldn't tell me." " I had no words.
This is what men do. This is what girls are."
"But still you feared. Your heart fought it."
"What woman would not choose which man
beds her? By a tribal rule? Or by her own fired loins & heart?"
"I didn't intend to take you." "You'd sniffed me
close the first time we passed. I'd already chosen you.
I just didn't think it would happen. So his
small cock would have your handsome face."
I laugh. You taught me the heaviness & lightness
of a woman's wants, of her needs.
"You made me King."
"Your brothers had already
decided that. Just lacking was the kingdom."
"When they beheld you my Queen, I now had
worth to kneel for!"
She shifts impatiently. Strokes my cock
thoughtfully, if that's possible. Moves
about in my arms, then leaps back
from my known moves. "Tell me."
"Tell you what? You feel my hardness.
Shall I beg again?" She laughs. Then stops.
"Why were you here? You didn't come
to free & unite us. Not originally."
"Why say you?" "Because girls like me
are the spoils of the last standing.
You hesitated. Gave me choice."
"I'm not a brute."
"No. And it takes one to ride into settled lands
& claim them. Fell the men there or worse
let them live servants thereon. Tell me." I marvel her again &
wonder my silence.
"You sought something. Or someone?"
Silence.
"Should I fear you begged another her treats,
& she lives still in your heart?"
"No. We rode as brothers looking for a home.
We'd bonded by chance, accident, &
vowed to settle. We were ready. Too many
limps among us. Low fires in the heart.
We were tired."
You didn't quite believe me. You knew
among us six no longer spoken words,
wishes, remained. You chose, after all,
to love what I could give. Love, loving,
kindness. An especial cruel hand to any man
who'd have a girl like a tankard. To be drained,
bussed by another. I ruled by your lights,
& why you were taken from me is all
keeping me alive.
******
xxix. Builds the Kingdom (Part 2)
The ancient women have not forgotten
me as I visit their dwelling alone.
They gather around me in their furs
& feathers & finery. The manacle each
wears on her left wrist, as reminder.
"Tell me. We don't visit for sentiment."
"There are stranger strengths in this
world than most reckon. Hidden paths
among dreams, & truck even between
life & death." "Tell me."
The oldest, three hideous bones of a woman,
eyes me. "Why did you return?"
"I won't lie. It was chance." "What were
you seeking?" I look at the manacle
on her ancient crust of a wrist &
try to think of her, girl in new stained
white panties, led off for consumption.
I sigh. "We sought the Tangled Gate,
a bond of men gathered to save the world.
But it was vain. Why gather us & not
reveal the thing? They were despairing.
Becoming saviors to my old homeland
saved them, saved all of us."
"Now you despair."
"Yes. And you have help?"
These old crones then spend the last of
their blood bone & magick to answer me.
A bed the size of my brothers' boat,
fires & stars where ceiling'd stolid stood,
& them too many to count & ferocious
again in their flesh, mouths to be
kissed & sucked, breasts to be squeezed
& bitten, shoulders & stomachs & buttocks
to be licked, chewed, tendered, hips
& maidenhair to be released in happy
moans, laughing howls, & in that night
they showed me, each a witchly piece
to the whole, the route to the Island,
& thus the Gate. Thus the Gate.
I woke by sun, chewed, well chewed
& battered in dust. Of course they were
gone, as though never been. But I knew
the way now. It was no noble task
for us, some great work of obligation.
We'd been wrong. We'd come to save the world
now because we had so much to lose
by its passing. Love fights for its right,
love sacrifices when it must, but love most
seeks to learn best how to live & shows others how.
******
xxx. Falling Free
There is no time. That's what we six learned.
What we know still. There is no time.
We travel rootless paths. Cling to their scenery.
We mold to sense impressions, helplessly,
& layer upon layer our seeming knowledge.
Our bodies mature like fruit, to new shapes,
to deeper withins. The path to others sometimes
farther, more volatile. Do the lights of the sky
understand? Do other creatures of the earth?
Can our want flare to knowing, stay?
We accumulated, entering the Cave,
filled our bond more & more, seeming,
then a falling back, a rupture. A loss.
So many years to find this Island,
come to its shores. With the wishes
of our kingdom, its worries we be well.
We'd intended no kingdom & yet it now stood,
& those who had raised it were now leaving,
a voyage for all humanity, twas said, & though
the world seemed prosperous & at its ease,
they sailed without further word.
The King now knew the way, he'd summoned
us & said. His great hall, its great communal
meal table, where we ate with all of our
kinsmen, was emptied but for one map.
His eye, his finger on one place, seeming
in the open sea. "There." We looked.
"In the morning." "How do we land on water?"
"It will be there." "How will we know?"
He stopped us with a fist upon the table.
"It's there. It's what we seek. Guarded,
but we will be let in." Then he turned & left,
didn't take his map. Didn't need it.
It was our fellowship that allowed us
passage. The King traded our love for it.
For him, twas no longer save mankind or the world.
Save her. Bring her back. Her unknown illness.
Lack of funeral. No gravesite. We sailed.
Other stories tell of our arrival, the dreams,
the dark portents. None tell the rest.
There is no time.The Island that was not there came into
view the third morning out, & we landed
its shoreless rocky edge. Woods, it was covered
in a unnavigable pale Woods!
But the King had negotiated our passage.
He gathered us the next morning,
upon an unliked night of sleep there,
closed his eyes, & began to sing.
Sing & climb from the rocks & on into
the Woods. We followed him, weapons
but no foe. A silent Woods to enter,
save for the King's crooning.
Helpless we followed. Our King blindly
sang & moved forward, not a stumble,
unlike the rest of us. He sang us along
a seeming invisible path for hours
& impossible to say it led, & yet did.
It should have been night when we came out,
& beheld the Tangled Gate. Should have,
wasn't. It was taller than a castle
& seeming ageless. Was ageless. There is no time.
We'd yet to learn.
We remarked its legend above us:
"For those lost." Were we? We passed through.
There a Fountain, carved fanatically
beyond the mortal skills. Its waters
an invitation. The King gestured us drink.
There seemed no choice.
The passage through the Gate was only
partly physical. It's this the myths
cannot convey. There were no days or nights
in the Gate. There is no time.
We did not come to the Cave of the Beast
by a path, or several. It was arrival
without intention. Were there even
the paths told of, made of vines & stones?
Had we left the Fountain, or the entrance,
or had we even left the shoreless
rocky lip of the Island?
The King roused us. As a group we'd been
slumped. "This is why we were brought
together. To come here & enter this Cave.
We're here to save the world by our
worth as men. Our willingness to enter
this Cave."
I entered & found myself of a sudden
by the shore of a pond at twilight.
The pond was covered in water lilies,
& the insect hum rose to my ears.
I sat & did not know. There was no
way back. This is what was intended for me.
I entered next, seeing my brother in the far
distance, by a place he'd mentioned having seen
once, called it a living painting. I could not
retrieve him, & despaired, when I felt
many arms embrace me, touch my face,
join my beating, my breath, my brothers--
And I came, though what separated one
from another of us I could less & less tell.
I did not need aid to sleep & wake both
for here in the Gate it was this forever,
it was source, before sunshine, before soil,
all was music, all was flow. I smiled.
I came to know & saw the living canvas
of my brothers & how I'd come to paint it
& I yearned my place! Please let me
consume in the this canvas finally
& know more than painter & subject,
let all be one, let all be one.
My King I came last before you &
something in this welcoming goo
was wrong. I loved my brothers so much
but I was trained by Creatures
far wiser than we men to sniff
& know. As I entered the Cave
I sniffed to know & the pain seemed
to rip me wide. I sniffed again &
again, to calm. My brothers were not
in that Cave. Not dead but gone.
When I came out you shrieked wordless
at me. You ran past me into the Cave
& remained within for three days.
I was compelled to stay vigil, no more.
When you came out, that third morning,
you were not as I had known.
We returned to our ship, unhindered,
no path needed. You told me only one thing,
"There's no need to mourn them. We know
there is no time. So there can be no death."
All I felt was the falling back,
the rupture, the loss. I wondered the Gate,
then the Island, then the sense
of everything.
I broke with you, my King, when I sunk
to my knees one night & cried for help.
Cried for help a man could conceive
& use. A Savior, to comfort, to explain.
A Savior, whether he had ever existed,
could now exist. Could comfort & explain
hereon. Could bring me along with the rest.
Where you, my King, my brother, had denied
when you willing sacrificed us all in the Gate.
The emptiness possesses me, even now,
as I saw you divide from your kingdom,
as I saw you reach back to the Island,
as I saw you come to believe
there was something there after all
to save men, a bargain to be made
with whatever Eternals had built that Gate.
I arrayed against you, my King,
that others would not follow you,
across the waters, on the path
that had taken our brothers from us.
A path you had designed because
there is no time & she had not died
& you could save her even now. You could
still save her & our brothers. The Gate
could save us all. The Gate could save the world.
******
*** Many Musics, IX, xxvi, Unexplainable Spasm, this story of the painter brother, & how his magic canvases summoned them all together, it is a strange, 'witching poem, one I still like, the power it gives to Art to summon, to teach, to change . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, xxvii, The Gypsy Girl, this is a more light-hearted episode, a way of slowing down the narrative for just a little while . . . but still there is more to this, if I take it up again sometime . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, xxviii, Builds the Kingdom (Part 1) . . . How the King found his Queen, & why he is so haunted in the original TG series . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, xxix, Builds the Kingdom (Part 2) . . . wrote this and the previous one in a now-gone all night joint in East Village NYCity . . . we learn how the King finds the route to the Island . . . & now ready for this sequence's finale . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, xxx, Falling Free . . . This was the finale of this sequence, & I wanted it to be big & revealing . . . I think it is, & it covers a lot of ground . . . yet I think I'll return to these scenes again, to delve in more . . .
Continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-ninth-series-part-5/
Continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-ninth-series-part-5/