Many Musics, Ninth Series, Part 1

[cenacle]

Continued from here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-eighth-series-*part-8-of-8*/

"Open hands, touch, & teach others how"

i. Flutter

Tonight I listen for the flutter to go.
Less than a hum, a low whistle,
less than a something, a key-shaped
declivity in the ether, humbling clue.

It was another dream of sand set me to go.
This one a test, the several questions,
fingering grains to conjure answer,
& in the right order: Forgive. Understand. Reconcile.

And now the path, past my dreams,
& every foolish hour. Came where I should,
in this graying dusk, & now to listen,
now to watch, wait & watch, there—
A pink nose, glowing fur, parting through grass,
a way not a way, just the flutter to go.

******

ii. By Way of Reply

Arrived here from so many hours & miles,
I remember hard two. One is your greasy brow,
your sweaty face, playing a game you love
but maybe not enough. You want to sing,
shape the air to your music, color exposed
the cankers in your heart, if not fill
or efface them all. I watch from
the sidelines, a backup reporter with
little interest until you collide into me
& we collapse in pains & mud.

Years later, I dream we are talking
on the phone, trying to explain
our lost friendship, understand the moment
when mud becomes dust, understand
anything at all. A turn & I am in
a vast coffeehouse in San Francisco,
several floors, rooms doored by old
patchwork curtains, a couch the color
of badly dyed red hair, thin covers-less
books of poetry heaped together between bricks.

I'm glad we moved here, I think, finally,
after living so many other places.
San Francisco, I think gladly, at last.

When I wake, we're not in or bound
for San Francisco. And you are still
my friend, waking in your own home,
with your loving wife like mine.

And I am in the Gate, still, too,
& it reminds me that the old truism
about diminishing numbers of doors
through the years is laziness worse
than lies. Look left, look right, mind
& look ahead. They're swinging every
which way, a shaggy spectral music at the ready.

******

iii. Empty Ballpark

The black kitten, so tiny in her long blue top hat,
sleeps on a scrap of cardboard I found,
or sometimes on the edge of my hand.
We cannot decide if she is my dream,
either of us, but she remains close in my hours.

I'm trying to understand what any of this is,
as I always have, did. I saw clouds in the
skies, when a child, as frames to mysteries
embedded in the blue. The ways lamps
reflected on windows, in my first heartbreak,
& the next, seemed a secret warm pattern to things.

Faces in crowds befuddled me, each one dry
& no hint of the tinder within. Perhaps something
when wrapped in a book, or a letter. I watched lamps
deeper into reflections, listened. Watched lover
after lover sleep in my bed, gentle as demised.
The black kitten came, then the blue top hat.

Or the other way. I travelled the last carriage
out of town, walked & walked, found
an empty ballpark. A scrap of cardboard.
Or the edge of my hand. Sleeping without answer,
or question. A trust in me. I step from the ground,
finally, balancing her as my all.

******

iv. Big Dreams

I awake. Really alone. You're both gone.
I have nothing left but the Gate.
I don't know what this means but
it's my only way on now. This great bed,
that large table, the plain table & chair.

The last time I saw you, the last time
we curled half-nude, watching TV,
you relaxed, you smiled with me.
You had translucent shades on your windows,
to let the stars & streetlights in,
but obscurely. I was not your lover.

We formed a circle, you & me & him,
we tendered each other, I was not your lover,
nor his, we were sugar water on
each other's tongues, colluding flames
in each other's hearts. I joined you, & you,
I stayed, & then remained, & then no more.

There is light on the water outside,
I struggle to think dawn or dusk.
Those mountains are always white-capped
so I do not know the season. Those evergreens
tell little more, but I am a man &
so yearn to know. I am a man &
knowing is a hole I try to fill. I am a man &
I miss you for all your cruelties,
you final lies, your lingering tenderness.

I was not your lover that last long night
when we finally all twisted into bed,
when we made each other come new stars
into the hours & skies. I was not your lover
when the juices of our bodies commingled
& no god could tell us apart. I was not your lover
but I am a man & I am still trying to fill
that hole, see through your translucent shades
into your heart, hearts, three, two, one,
& I am awake. Really alone. You're gone.

******

v. Guerilla

It came upon me with no name &
it is beautiful & I can't describe it
but I'll try. There were streets then,
closer to the water, the salt & water,
& the glare of trollies, & the fire. I was mad,
several times over, I walked & walked.

It came upon me with a beautiful push
to say, to sing, & I can only think of hands,
so many hands, come & gone, watched
& come & gone. Parks full of scrawny green,
the moon hardly a thumb's print above.
I walk & I walk. Your ass remains poised

before me, your eyes so dark, so fuzzy with want
& challenge. Like a good fuck can clear
away your heart's trash. The trollies pass
in pairs by the open window, one hither,
the other yon, I laugh. I should have laughed.
The beautiful thing, nameless, nods with me.

Calmer now, unsated, we sit together
under your room's single window.
Its view to bricks imprinted red & gold,
it comes upon us both now, sitting
together, our hands twined, coming,
going, I notice your ankles are discolored.

"My shoes," you explain. The beautiful thing
is nudging me again, pulling now.
Have to hurry. I kiss your bare shoulder &
stand finally. Your look is plain,
the timeless one when love leaves too soon
& no counter. I turn. Walk & walk.

Till the years pass, greener parks,
other hands. I can't describe it all
but I'll try. You dream you're with a friend,
another one lost one way or another,
& sitting together, there is relief. Time
didn't take you, I never let you go,
this beautiful thing pounds with every beat
in my chest, a music that never quits.

******

vi. Burning Man

The flutter to go came years ago,
came upon me here, this table,
this courtyard, a night kissed soft
with lights & air as these, it came,
in a flutter, rightly music? So I chose,
& chose to go, chose to follow.

Dreaming, dreaming, perhaps, & I still wonder
at it, how I let a flutter make a world,
I loved the four trees in this courtyard,
the old bricked floor, the clack & laughter
of chess pieces nearby, we might all have
grown old together, I have might have written

here every year from then to now. But I didn't.
Not here. A preacher, one night, there
on the street, crying, "Your world's mud's
becoming dust! Behold it everywhere!
Your world's mud is becoming dust!" I stood.
The clatter of lights in the cafe, its later hours,

its mediocre foods. The flutter to go &
I stood up. I was from other years.

There were too many ancient buildings
as I walked, too much tribute to old gods
& aged learning. The park I found was young
with green, I tried to stay, tried to kneel
& believe. On a bench, a scrap of cardboard
I pocketed, flutter, flutter, go.

Those around me didn't know theirs
was half some world becoming half
some other, they were figures in an equation,
waving spectres in a long long wind, I could not
warn them, could not long lie among them,
their views translucent when young &

muddier & muddier. I walked on, came finally
to a tall fire in the desert where all
could go. They danced around it, cried &
cheered. What a beautiful thing, to flutter,
flutter, & finally go! The years had eaten
my hands, my art, I thought I had nothing left

yet I did not burn. I could not burn.
A man of dreams does not burn.

I hold my uncharred scrap of cardboard tonight.
The courtyard trees above me burst with
springtime green, another softly kissed night.
The mediocre foods, the knock of chessboards.
What comes, & will not go. Where I must return.
What beauties the night will not cede.

******

vii. A Man of Dreams

A man of dreams does not burn.
Am I man of dreams? Seems so.
Many dreams? Seems so.

I still wake. I still walk by day's light.
My lover nestles me in the crimson shades
of our chamber. Our bed alights with moans & cries.

But dreaming, I sit here in this familiar
courtyard & feel it close, as the worn bricks
under my feet, the green green leaves above.

Not all is one or the other, my cane
is both, oaken, carved instructions
I cannot read when awake, called a hekk.

My coat, this long leather thing, another
that had crossed the Dreaming &
keeps me close. A singing in my ears.

I am trying to know this. Nobody can
tell. The summer wind, the blue glare
of gaseous street lamps. Taxis & cruisers
on the street. What is waking?
What is dreaming? Do I come here from
elsewhere & what is that place?

A woman's sweet ass in denim reminds
me of another. The chess players
nearby chat of multiple realities
between moves. I feel the lust,
live & remembered both. Their ideas
seem reasonable, a guitar starts up.

The music is a signal, a nudge,
a something, catch a hold its thread,
follow as a clue. Remember some things.
It's what I struggle to do. I do not burn.
I close my eyes, over the fence of details
& into the music. Cool darkness,
flowing, floating, water the temperature
of skin. A bare shoulder in a cluster
of glares, a reedy voice. To find her again,
to remember some things. The Dreaming
nudges me back from its far edges &
I wake. A bare shoulder. Nothing burns.

******

viii. A Chair is Like a Stump

There was a situation. They dress me
& send me into the night, kind,
dear, I'd struggled. They listened close.
Fed me pieces of fruit, & much water,
walked me in the garden many times
where the striped white tiger with
electric blue eyes roams. But now
I am dressed & sent into the night,
to a club, to continue my healing, &
travel on. It's the next stage.

The club is dark & the music growls
from a fractured stage. I count
ten lights upon it & nothing clearly
in view. It's wrong, maybe others
notice too. I stand & look at the girl
sitting with me, her red hair, electric
blue eyes, dressed in feathers & leaves,
more vines & stones a crown on her head,
she smiles toward something & points.
She says, "It's a language of metaphors
& displacement." I nod.

I reply, eyeing her shoulder soft in lights,
her cheek softer in shadows,
"a person is a house of rooms. And we
go from one room to the next,
clearing the cobwebs, but then
the rooms we're not in fill up with
more & more & we keep moving."
I am shaking, this matters.
I grasp her shoulder, grip it,
pull her to me. "A chair is like a stump."

We go. We will travel together.
You will show me. You are not her
but you will show me. At night
you are warm water, floating in
darkness. Music tugging me &
I follow. Your touch is moonlight
in deep woods, a push, a pull, a tremble
to press me on in these obscure matters.

******

ix. Take Back Your Mind

It was a far Western city. Winter blooms
outside the window that morning. Now night.
That morning I'd read the sad letter &
it's sent me along my day's path. The longer
I stayed in Dreamland, the more it became
something else. The rest of it. What explained
our encasement in time & space, on earth,
breathing, beating. Slaves to genetic
programming. To let go all was to fall, to fail,
to die. So we rigged choice behind eyelids,
behind bars of sleep, there to blow, to exhaust.

But it was a sad letter, there is that
too. And the blooms come before spring.
And I left you sleeping, covered you to
chill & light. The letter warned you
of me, wondered at all your years
tending my music. It was a letter
letting you go, knowing you wouldn't,
knowing you believed, you loved,
you waited & knew. Your face peaceful,
your ever-light sleep mercifully unbroken.

I walked far to find my friends in
their paintless old church, its many rooms
a refuge. Looking further, I found them
in the cemetery with its clusters
of embedded stone markers. Their crowd
of the poor, the half bidden, a few ex-priests,
none of it mattered, I walked on, she
wasn't in this city, the rain was icy.

As I returned to you by dusk,
all was ice, impossibly iced,
our street now a long climb, my doing
maybe. I find a phone in my hand
to call you, its cord runs to a set of
dark boulders outside our door.

I call & call. The horizon now careens
with wild sheets of light, ripping &
mending, ripping & mending, this is how
worlds end here, nothing learned
but that losing solid ground below
us, flying past days & miles,
would relieve us of nothing dearest,
the touch as it passes, the breath expires,
& to choose again, & to choose again.

******

x. There Were Birds

There were birds, there were birds, there were birds,
& at first they were out my window &
they were filling my dreams so they were
out my window but filling my dreams too.
They crossed over, with their singing,
their chuckling, crossed over until eventually
they formed my dreams, bigger & bigger,
their singing became my dreams, my dreams
became their singing, more & more,
& still they were out my window singing.

You remained. You slept more & more.
You slept deeper into your covers, your pillow.
You were no longer there by sun, by day.
You were leaving with the birds, leaving
with the birds, leaving with the birds.
You were now neither by sun nor moon
but you were some strange remain.
Close to me still, a shadowy sticky something
now, the first sweetness life will take
& leave only open hands to remind.

******

[cenacle]

  *** Many Musics, IX, Flutter (i) – I was not sure how to follow up the Tangled Gate Series, so I began with uncertainty, & some dream material . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, By  (ii) – more dreams, some narrative, & mention of the Gate . . . easing back into myth I thought I was done with . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, Empty Ballpark (iii) -  Again, playing with dreams, feeling out this new character, unsure where bound . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, Big Dreams (iv) – He's sad, he's remembering, getting a better feel for him by digging into his biography . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, Guerilla (v) – Who is he? What is he to the larger story? . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, Burning Man (vi) – I realized this is Dreamwalker, from the TG myth, & so his story is continuing more now . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, A Man of Dreams (vii) – More of who he is, with his Hekk stick (a dream image of mine) & his travels across the Dreaming . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, A Chair is Like a Stump (viii) – He finds a traveling companion . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, Take Back Your Mind (ix) – This is Dreamwalker walking a dream, haunted . . .
*** Many Musics, IX, There Were Birds (x) – This concludes this section, somewhat mysteriously, of his story, for now . . .

[cenacle]

continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-ninth-series-part-2/