Within Hearing
It's rather like wandering down and down from the dreadful highest into some endless unknown city …. lost up there among the quarriers and shark hunters and fighters without reason, taking a job amongst them really, even though they realize you could be somewhere else ."You look like ... You could be better off. That hair. What are you doing amongst us?" Yet soon enough you're running a gang on a stolen train, shooting people at random just because you can. And finally free of that you tell your new apprentice if we are to get out of here we must work, climb, climb very high, even though you realize that your own hated yet more proper city is far below, way way down there among the lubbers and cocksmen, auto workers so dear. This is mad work that we are about here among the twisted boards and leanto dwellings which hold the Secret Word in a burning jar.
"Don't take that way sir, the tracks are about to turn!" I am warned, and yet I go on. Down now, properly down. This is a terrible place, yet venerable. It is where Melville was, and Hawthorne and the like. So here we go, here we go. Come along, Ned. If we are going to get us home we must travel far … yet who can hear my song now? Who will listen? I sing and sing. Haha. Don't talk about your novels, Ra, sing them right here where no one will listen, but at least they will listen ha ha!
You begin to slide. Where there had been stairs now there is ice, a wind and a desert. There are friendlies. Some ancient houses. A fog comes and mists it all away. There sir. Fire. Find your way to it. What are they talking about? Nothing. I will sing and make all ordered and comprehensible in a tale of our tribe. Now I'll do it pat. Get it right at last. They will know me at last and call me Him. Prophet, fool. Also he juggles ha.
But you know it's over, you fair haired fool, grizzled and limping and bereft of a banjo. Need'st thou proof of it say thy name to the stars. Wink, wink. Why Who? Yoohoo, Yehuda most high beard? Do you not remember me who made the wind and all the whales?
Rest now we must. Here there is water and some sherry. The sea is visible now. Home sea full of tall swans. Your famous writing, your philosophy, a darkness upon the face of the waters, yet there is popcorn, little white boats of popcorn floating and these are your words. Pretty. Not so? Pretty? Please sir, if you'd only give me this brief hearing.
THE PREQUAL
But wait. Get on back. First there was old Valderon, old friend. I had come up the hill to find my girl. She was trapped up there in snare and delusion. A large apartment actually which she felt she could not leave. I was there to deliver her and Valderon had given me horse in his big blue car. The motor idling, Val just sitting there in both innocence and self importance, singing along to Wagner on the pod.
I ran in. She was there but she hid. I went from room to room. There were shops, wineries, all the goods you don't need and yet you must. She is there. I smell sandalwood. Sandalwood and myre: these are the mixings of Silk Rout miscegenations, mutant loves. I hear her running. Her clogs, clop clop clop. She is a nanny goatfoot, also a mermaid, yet another mermaid. Finally Valadaron needs join me in the hunt across the crooked floors. We too make clopping sounds. We are horses now. We've always been horses in our own way, or wannabes with our high manes. Dig the Pompadours and pomp. At last we find her, hiding among her paints in the closet. She is crying for shame of herself, for letting me touch her, even though it was long ago.
Val must lift her up. He carries her in his brown arms and I run ahead scout. By this time she has fallen in love with him I'm sure. They all fall for him, for he is Valderon and I am only a geezer of Ling. Valderon, ah Valderon. You were even better at that! Yet I can build a fire and see to your torn lips, eh? When you are sodden and needs fall upon the rocks, going OOK! OOK!
We rest. We lie there in one large sleeping bag with you in the middle. "I love you," she whispers in your old goat's ear and you mutter an acknowledgement. You don't care about love at all, never have. You are a posturing Romantic. You don't even have the Certificate. Fool without honor, let me go. I must go. Fly on down now. All else is prelude. Prelude, my fat dead friend.
Qaf Qaf Qa
"Don't take that way sir, the tracks are about to turn!" I am warned, and yet I go on. Down now, properly down. This is a terrible place, yet venerable. It is where Melville was, and Hawthorne and the like. So here we go, here we go. Come along, Ned. If we are going to get us home we must travel far … yet who can hear my song now? Who will listen? I sing and sing. Haha. Don't talk about your novels, Ra, sing them right here where no one will listen, but at least they will listen ha ha!
You begin to slide. Where there had been stairs now there is ice, a wind and a desert. There are friendlies. Some ancient houses. A fog comes and mists it all away. There sir. Fire. Find your way to it. What are they talking about? Nothing. I will sing and make all ordered and comprehensible in a tale of our tribe. Now I'll do it pat. Get it right at last. They will know me at last and call me Him. Prophet, fool. Also he juggles ha.
But you know it's over, you fair haired fool, grizzled and limping and bereft of a banjo. Need'st thou proof of it say thy name to the stars. Wink, wink. Why Who? Yoohoo, Yehuda most high beard? Do you not remember me who made the wind and all the whales?
Rest now we must. Here there is water and some sherry. The sea is visible now. Home sea full of tall swans. Your famous writing, your philosophy, a darkness upon the face of the waters, yet there is popcorn, little white boats of popcorn floating and these are your words. Pretty. Not so? Pretty? Please sir, if you'd only give me this brief hearing.
THE PREQUAL
But wait. Get on back. First there was old Valderon, old friend. I had come up the hill to find my girl. She was trapped up there in snare and delusion. A large apartment actually which she felt she could not leave. I was there to deliver her and Valderon had given me horse in his big blue car. The motor idling, Val just sitting there in both innocence and self importance, singing along to Wagner on the pod.
I ran in. She was there but she hid. I went from room to room. There were shops, wineries, all the goods you don't need and yet you must. She is there. I smell sandalwood. Sandalwood and myre: these are the mixings of Silk Rout miscegenations, mutant loves. I hear her running. Her clogs, clop clop clop. She is a nanny goatfoot, also a mermaid, yet another mermaid. Finally Valadaron needs join me in the hunt across the crooked floors. We too make clopping sounds. We are horses now. We've always been horses in our own way, or wannabes with our high manes. Dig the Pompadours and pomp. At last we find her, hiding among her paints in the closet. She is crying for shame of herself, for letting me touch her, even though it was long ago.
Val must lift her up. He carries her in his brown arms and I run ahead scout. By this time she has fallen in love with him I'm sure. They all fall for him, for he is Valderon and I am only a geezer of Ling. Valderon, ah Valderon. You were even better at that! Yet I can build a fire and see to your torn lips, eh? When you are sodden and needs fall upon the rocks, going OOK! OOK!
We rest. We lie there in one large sleeping bag with you in the middle. "I love you," she whispers in your old goat's ear and you mutter an acknowledgement. You don't care about love at all, never have. You are a posturing Romantic. You don't even have the Certificate. Fool without honor, let me go. I must go. Fly on down now. All else is prelude. Prelude, my fat dead friend.
Qaf Qaf Qa
posted by Brent Powers at 7:26 AM
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