Silence is the Proper Prayer (in the Museum of Intangible Mechanisms)
Join the Rukesayer at the opening time for the Museum
After all, the weather looks ~ inclement
Umbrella weather if you will
Perfect
A perfect day for strolling the galleries of her art...
Episode Script
Silence is the Proper Prayer in the Museum of Intangible Mechanisms
Opening time for the Museum
The weather looks ñ inclement
Umbrella weather if you will
Perfect
A perfect day for strolling the galleries
A breaking of the symmetry of silence
that washed through this place all night
They say that the problem
with demons and angels
is that they just can't move on
I have fallen into this abyss of Art
and not unlike Alice
I seem to be falling forever
There is just so much to see and feel here
She knows what she is about
Knows that by changing and rearranging the installments
Mixing up the way Art is suspended
By bringing in new works
So much to see and feel here
In this maze I am tangled
Thralled as it were
by the Beauty that is True Art
The Curator Bids You Enter
To this Museum
indistinct and all but invisible
they come
Multitudes
Some carried in phantom coaches, some on foot
Walking across the winds above the World
Traversing the Salient Salty Seas
All coming
Coming to this place
this Museum of Culture
Some stand outside the door holding their tickets
debating merits and means
leaving without entering
Others charge in
treading everything
Then there are the gentle others
Lingering a moment
A day
A week
Finally with timid steps
holding hands for comfort
touching each other for strength and support
they pass through this Threshold
Some into the places they want to go
others into the places they need
Come one and all
and be sure to visit our shop before you leave
The Entrance
Vaulted vestibule
Vast cavernous spaces
Art
Sheets of paper floating in a dark place
(dark to help you focus on the art
not the walls)
Art
Floating midair
Two dimensional planes
sharp edged
(how do they get those to hang there?
No visible wires or means of support)
Color and textures reminiscent of the masters
on off-white surfaces
Symphonies of light and darkness
Landscapes of element and contour
presented for you consideration
The ceiling
(there is a ceiling, right?)
darker than the spaces between the stars at night
The walls indistinct
all of the world falling away
so that nothing is left to see
but the art
The Lady on a Chain Trapeze
She is above the floor where I stand
She's anging like a t-shirt on a clothes line
An angel portrayed on an empty street
New Orleans?
Maybe. . .
Definitely a place where jazz is played
Soft, smoky jazz-z-z-z-z
An empty street captured
Her image somehow transmuted
Ghostly pale paper
Dark strokes in pigments of the imagination
A random gust of air and the drawing is dancing
Lift
shifting
Left . . .
Then Right . . .
Pausing only for an instant at the apex
Her face
as though she is about to speak
No . . . as though the Goddess of the Life-Force
is about to speak through her
All the flying art starts to dance
and I pause in mute wonderment
Awaiting her pronouncement
that I might capture this glimpse into her
But then I come to a bitter understanding
There are no words that can even touch this
And all my meager skills as a poet
are not worthy of this moment
Seekers of the Art
First came the scientist
Poets
Writers
All with pens, pads
Hoping to pluck out the spirit of the place
with their analytical tweezers
Next came the people who thought
they might like to see their own work displayed
People wanting to scoff
People thinking it'd be grand
Just to be seen there
They found rooms
Airy spaces above the World
Where danced wisps of ice
Rooms dim
Misty subterranean grottoes
Filled with acrid
Funky odors
Rooms with a view
Rooms with ambiance
Rooms where
They dropped the pens and pads
with which they had dreamed
Of catching the ghosts of the place
The Creature and the Culture Question
In every part of the Uni'Verse there are creatures
Monsters of Heaven and Hell
Dragons, Angels and Demons
Some Dark
Some Light
And most in-between ñ Grey creatures of varying natures
One of the greyest ever seen has slithered into the museum
And having nothing better to do I confront the beast
"Brother Toad, why are you here?"
And he hisses a bit
(You know, these critters really hate it
when I remind them that I can see them)
"No really toad, why are you here?"
He leans back, takes a deep breath and croaks,
"I've come to consider the question of Culture
Every human society has engages in Culture
Expending Time, Energy and Resources
Every human society . . .'
(This critter sounds kinda like a cross between
Rod Serling and bag filled with swamp gas)
It continues, "Why?
What is the survival advantage of Culture?
Then why kill for it? Die for it?
Why destroy this planet to preserve this culture thing?'
I answer, "Look, you have asked a question in words
but the answer can't be spoken in words."
'Then how can you answer if you can't use words?'
And I smile
Open my arms to indicate all the art hanging in this studio
And answer everso elegantly
without saying a word. . .
The Hydra
the Book of Faces
My hand held digital assistant awoke with a beep
and the guard gave me stink eye
I touched my bone phone and asked
"Who is this really?"
A metallic voice, raspy with passion whispered
"I am the Book of Faces.
Demons and Angels sprout from my chest,
running wild across the Land.
I am the Hydra of Many Hands.
This is the hand that Kills
and this the hand that Heals.
The scolding hand,
the caressing hand,
the hand that bites
and smites
and smiles."
I am the liar, the saint and the fool
I am the foot of Empire that tells you how to serve me
I am the grain of sand
that is drawn into a fiber of twinkling light
I am not your mother or father or brother or friend
I am the servant of your Merchant Rulers
who only want to sell you something
Anything
Clever parasites hiding behind the walls of your world
who have researched all the ways
to make you afraid
Fear is the shaker and mover of merchandise
So I disconnected
Never did figure out how to pull the battery
Curse of the Scribe
She said
Tell me how to write a poem
With a broken heart
And i said
"You just breathe life into your poem's heart
and then you break it."
She said
"That's not funny."
Just a Note in My Journal
The very first time you touched me
all the music of the Uni'verse gathered
at the point where your hand touched my hair
All the symphonies of Beetoven
All the poetry of Blake
All the dances of every culture
met in one single
searing
sustained note
E' Vivatae DÛna el Riu and Her Dragon Poet
The Lady V appeared
beneath an autumn-kissed scarlet maple leaf
in the Garden of Muses and Mythical Beasts
under a pregnant moon in conjunction with Jupiter
Lithe of limb, creamy of skin
with lips impossibly beautiful and hair. . .
(How am I to describe her hair?)
Hair the color of poetry
Both our reflections danced across the dark waters
as we walked by the River
She laughed and pointed
and told me all the secrets behind the secrets
In a twilight that only Vincent would have painted
Under gently swaying trees filled with that Spanish moss
I asked her, "Will you abandon me
when I'm too old to sing?"
"What a silly question. You have always been too old."
"Then why do you bother with me?"
"Look around, where are you?"
"In the Garden . . ."
"As well you should be.
Do you think this is some kind of accident?
You are a part of this place.
Quickly now
put your nonsense away
and write down what you see.
Nothing here is eternal
especially not me.
The Woman in the Gallery of Old Movie Posters
The fifty foot woman was hot man
She was fifty feet tall and a fox
(though she looks a bit pissed)
A testament to Modern art
she is really messing that interstate bridge up
and where did she get those clothes?
No, seriously
Where?
And those electrical towers?
What did they do to her?
The note on the handbook says
"The Fifty Foot Woman had complicated marriage
troubled by a philandering husband."
That's him
In that car
Damn
She stomped his ass
Missing the Grey Guys
the Frames without Pictures
Alice looked behind the Curtain
And Dorothy wasn't there
Not even that little yap-yap-yappity-yap dog
Her mirror cracked from side to side
and she whispered,
"Where have all the Wizards gone?"
Arthur's mentor/tormentor must be under a rock
Merle hasn't been seen since he fell for what's her name
(Rumor has it Nim stuffed him under a hawthorn tree
Then went back to court ~ It didn't turn out well)
The little furry footed guys
are up to their kiesters in Orcs with forks
and the Grey Guy must have gone off the deep end
(Said something about flying)
Where have all the Wizards gone?
Guess they were really tired
All those tasks and audiences
Musta needed to rest for a spell
The Madam of Jazz
She stares back at me from the frame
She is fingerprints smeared on brass
She is notes both smooth and intense
meandering through the cloudy reflections on the sax
of this image of a smoke filled bar
The ebon music flows
Delicate sable silk
through my ears
The ragged tattered hat
I can smell the shirts and the dusty street
A hand that trumps my heart
She leans into the music
somehow floating above the chair
Pictures within picture on the walls
of the canvas place
Cigarettes and Mexican beer
but my eyes keep coming back to the way she is dancing
to the new Orleans Jazz Players
Poker hands on the carved and rickety table
She says
"Play your cards right
and you might get lucky. . ."
The Ghost in the Hallway
This door opens on a dry, desert plane
The wind comes hot
Everything above the sand ripples
Mirage and fancy
In the distance
Are the dead rising
Piercing the silvered membrane?
Or are they the living
How will we answer?
What will we say to them?
How will we account for ourselves?
Gold-glit Frame
Here she's in a red dress
Has grown old in the sun
Remembers what it was like to dance
Naked
in the Elysian Fields
Not unlike lilies caressed by the sultry summer breeze
Somehow this picture is crooked
but perfectly aligned
(Honest
I measured it)
I can tell she is remembering
impassioned moonlight kisses
the color of longing
Remembering how kisses grow cold
in Winter's wane light
How the young men crashed against her
like waves in the storm
These pictures hang on a trapeze
and the ventilation of this place
makes her dance
Songs I half hear
Echoes in her paper heart
Madam's Jass Club
Not the guy with the saxophone and the dark suit
He doesn't like me
The guy beside him, the trumpeter with thick hands
he calls it 'Jass'
and he has clearly earned the right
to call it whatever he wants
He defines the word 'jass' and it defines him
His brother in-law
the guy playing the clarinet further to the right
has never treated his sister right but the man can play
and she never complains
That's their drummer
but that isn't his drum set
he busted his bass last week
(it was so old
only a matter of time)
He rented this drum set for the gig
Can't tell if he's comfortable with it just yet
This place is theirs
They have been playing here since the Vietnam war
Since the old place burned to the ground
(under rather suspicious circumstances)
The venue was put together
by one of those bohemian artist over at the studio
Kinda reminds me of that dilapidated filling station
we saw out by the Everglades
(of course that wasn't jass or jazz
we had on the radio it was Thomas Dolby)
Yeah
it's like that
Ballerina Sketched in Pencil and Ink
She sits off stage left
On the cold, hard, unforgiving boards of a stage
that might have been glorious
once
just after the War
Maybe seventy years ago
Her arms wrapped around herself
Her face hidden against her legs
Her back heaving silent sobs
She keeps chanting
"This should hurt
this should be hurting
more."
Leaning against the fashionably exposed brick
of the proscenium
beside the aged curtain filled with dead dream dust
Between numbers
she knows she'll never be famous
Hell, she'd settle for just not sucking
Her arms wrapped around herself
Her face hidden against her legs
Her back heaving silent sobs
She keeps chanting
"This should hurt
this should be hurting
more."
Debbie
(the other girl)
got flowers
The Lover in a Watercolor
In this watercolor
she's lost in a moment
Eyes of some blended blue
A look that comes mostly at the lake
A look that takes her wholly and completely
Takes her to distant shores and far away harbors
Places in and above the world
Safe harbors
I try to trace maps to those far, far distant places
(the guard tells me to step back from the art)
There are no instructions
no notes
Nothing
(Never have a UV light when I need one)
She always goes there without me
and always says she's sorry I can't come along
I know better
She's happier there
than she can ever be with me
Gelatin Silver Print
She is turning away from the mirror
remembering the way he would
put his arms around her
She says
"I never had a chance.
I miss your hands the most.
Nowadays I have to wrap my arms around myself
to keep my heart from falling out of my rib cage
onto the floor."
She looks out the windows
as the misty silvered sun bleeds through the horizon
She bends down her head
She says
nothing
The silent memory of flesh moving on flesh
A memory poem to no one but her
It's all she has left
In the Basement
The room itself is suffering
Gloom oozing from under the base boards
Rain rushes into the basement
Smelling of mud and Chaos
Old hats and scum swirling down there behind the door
She says
It always happens here in your head
without your permission
We all do it
The fear of dying
I just wanted to leave footprints ascending the stair
Mud on the concrete steps
I look across the basement
Dear gentle one
Take what pace I can give
and know rest
at last
Repose in Shadow
Sleep well my lover
You're tired
Sleep this game you play
When you've has your fill
throw off this childish notion
Open your silent eyes
Walk with me
once again under cyan skies
untroubled by clouds
Memory of the Dance
She moved out onto the floor
and in that motion she taught me to love
Taught me that there will always be mysteries in the world
She danced like leaves on fire
swirling in the autumn wind
That night
long after the normal world was asleep
we peeled away the ribbon and lace
mask
I loved her more than any animal
man
or god
has ever loved anyone
Flakes and Fragments of Her Dark Shadow Self
She awoke in a cavity
And though the blackness tried to pull her back in
she fought for the light
pouring in over the lip of the pit
The darkness was ebon vines wrapped all around her
Holding her without touching her, like Gravity
Climbing
she lifted herself by shear force of Will
Rising against the gradient, the darkness flowing off her
like frothsome mud, staining her, not quite letting her go
The roots of the darkness wove too deep into her flesh
and as she rose
The fluidic pitch-black fears stretched and snapped
and shadow stains remained on her like tattoos
Shades that wouldn't let her stand in light
without darkness on the opposite side of her body
Shadows that always ran from the sun but never left her
Till one day that dawned
with the promise of spring
A cloudy grey day as close as a whispered promise
A day when shadows can't find purchase
A playful spring zephyr dragon twined around her then
and flakes and fragments of her dark shadow self
peeled and fractured
and fell away
Becoming shards and pangs
Ravens, if you will
Hopeful ravens spreading
on the back of that spring breeze
Like dark, dandelion vapor seeds
The Embossed Invitation
She stands in a silent room
She stands alone
Only seconds ago she was awash
in the noise and sound of him
Awash in the everyday ocean of him
Adrift in the tsunami of the way he makes her feel
I stand beside her
just another piece of an unbroken silence
She says
"He could never be mine . . .
I mean he is . . . he is not available.
Why do his eyes speak to me""
She casts about the room
A guest at a wedding after the feast
Like she is looking for a napkin or a memento
She says
"He doesn't love me
I mean . . . how could he?
What's there to love in me?"
I turn to look out a window into the coming sunset
and though I am a whisper of a whisper I say
"The worst kind of love is not the love never returned
(though that love is hurricane enough).
No, the worst love is the love never spoken.
The love aborted before it can even struggle for a breath.
The love like an angel being blown backward
by the winds from the abyss of despair."
From behind me she says
"I never had a chance."
I say
nothing
Music Box Gypsy
A tiny gypsy turning under a sky of many colors
A sky of mind filled with a bronze sun, gleaming
Above a mother of pearl box,
quietly singing the music the stars
alive in the ebon velvet of a midnight sky
She's in a place, azure and white
Moving in a dance of light on water
trailing streamers, silver and wisps of white,
turning in, around, over and through
undulating like reeds in the musical current
At the center of her movement,
an illustrative allusion, a horizon,
a vector she points to but never touches
A place, a shadow realm
that she can see with her hands and feet
A place I can only touch on the edge of sleep,
the room I pass through before I fall
soundlessly into an ebon sky
where, perchance, I dream her delicately turning
above a mother of pearl box,
quietly singing the music the stars
alive in the ebon velvet of a midnight sky
In the Hallway Between Galleries
In this
the balancing point of my night
the midnight of my year
the darkest dawn of my life
I walk the spine of the night
Walk the hole in the zero
Never thought I'd have I face myself
by myself
I write in my journal
I light one candle
because all the darkness of the Uni'verse
is not enough to extinguish
this tiny light
Projected Picture
Curling into the small of my back
A feeling warm and golden
but she shivered
She calls out in a dream
remembering the kitten
She understood my hug
but not her father's goodbye
Her eyes kept asking a question
I couldn't answer
Tomorrow we will rescue a kitten at the shelter
Cause we are all just fur-bot misfits and malcontents
The sun rises after the night
Sometimes it's just that simple
Another Ghost Floats By
A whisp
A shadow of a beautiful amber-autumn afternoon
flows through the stairwell
Curls around the plant in the vase
enfolding the moment in a warm embrace
Illusions creep along the walls
Floating objects in the galleries
Feather fingers touching
Soft as shadows
She moves quietly
from room to room
Moves from one moment to the next
Each second another bead on the string of Time
Steampunk Map
My pain compass is broken beyond any repair or use
The maps of my sorrows is tattered and rat eaten
stained beyond any recognition
The crater of my Shiva core meltdown
is lined with fused sand the color of obsidian
A lens that bends darkness instead of light
In a harsh new sun
my sails are tattered but the masts are serviceable
My tiller is bent but the rudder still responds
A few leaks but my pumps are unclogged
My tears evaporate as the decks dry
The wisps of ghost lovers
whipped away by the wind
Tonight there will be stars
The Dark Artist
Sable silhouette
Ebon shadow
She lifts the pen
the shadow stiletto
With cool gentle hands
Employing the subtle
delicate
movements of a surgeon
she cuts the page
It bleeds black
She opens the wound
releasing art held captive somewhere inside the page
There is no sound
save her rustling silks
The mutter
sputtering of the candle
"Art can't be created. . .
It can only be set free."
Reaching to Touch an Angel
the Nude on the Wall
I reach to touch
but you have turned away
I reach to touch your back
the spots where you hacked off the wings
but withhold my touch
because no man should touch you there
I long to reach through the ribs of your heaving back
that i might touch your blood red heart bird
as it flusters about in its rib cage
I evaporate
before you can turn
She is in the Walls
I say to no one in particular
I say to the Curator of this place
Then let me be your magician
who by sleight of hand
distracts your from you forebrain conclusions
See ~ nothing up my sleeve
Persto-chango ~ still nothing, but a different kind of
Nothing
The Buddhist they love that trick
So much ado about ñ Nothing
My Lady
let me entertain you
See ~ nothing in my top hat
Persto-chango ~ still nothing
But this kind of nothing looks like a bunny
You don't like the cute bunny?
The Philosophers love that trick
kept George Hagel going for months
Closing Time?
Ok this
My final trick ~ Time
I would spend this darkness with you
Would commit the heresy of bending clocks
Salvador loved that trick
I would wait ~ here ~ in this darkness
It's the only True Magic I know
The End of the Day
Closing time for the Museum
The weather looks ~ well, still inclement
Don't leave your umbrella
'Tis been a good day for strolling the galleries
The good kind of hushed silence today
I like it better than the perfect symmetry of silence
that will wash through this place all night
Maybe tomorrow they'll have a school tour
Not all kids 'get it'
but every now and then . . .
They say that the problem
with demons and angels
is that they just can't move on
I have fallen into this abyss of Art
and she has snared me here
I consider my prayer
Silence is the proper prayer
in this Museum of Intangible Mechanisms