Many Musics, Ninth Series (ii)

[Cenacle]

continued from here:
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xxxi. Sleepers

Now each of you is shown the origin of
the world, its source in Emandia,
& how arrives the Gate to the Island.
Now each of you is given practice
to devote to your art, time to feel
how real it seems through the Dreaming.

Was not always so. We lost many,
in mind or entirely, early on,
thinking it would be quick, we knew
so much, the Hum that signaled
the Gate through time, the juice
created to pursue it, piece together the fall.

We believed it was a series of acts,
a finite number, they could be shifted,
like levers, like Time itself a great calculating
machine we could tinker to a better end.
We would find these acts, in space & time,
& settle one of our sleepers near each one.

But tell it otherwise, no, what happened
was that the Hum shifted. The Gate
eluded us & we could not use its power
to repair our history. We found ourselves
at war with the Gate, losing men & women,
helpless to know how to prevent our collapse.

I sought our answer dream within dream
within dream. Eschewed the Sleeping Capsule,
the potion of my own hand I trebled,
in strength. Did not wake & would
have died but for a friend. My old mutt retriever
would not be so long kept from me in
my Tower offices. He found me & licked me
& nudged me & dragged me back to him.

I held him despairing. His quick breaths,
his swift beat. How he tended me close
& how in other times I had tended
his wounds & ills. And then I realized
what should have been simple. Not a machine
with levers. History is the stuff of of
blood & bone. Save its body. But more.

The Gate is history’s heartbeat.
It could not save the flesh within which
it lives. We had to learn what had been
broken & by what manner to heal it.
This would be our way going forward:
bind the wounds, tend the wounds, heal the wounds.

The days & weeks & months & years tired me,
as I saw human history heal but not recover.
It was not enough, the world was failing
to sustain us for our countless ruining hands.
I wondered if there was something else,
a potenter magic to be seduced.

I began seeing the Hum as something else.
A thread. A thread through an impossible
way I needed to travel, through Time itself,
past it, what Emandia was, what we are.
I would go myself, if needed, as sacrifice
or Hero. We could not fail.

******

xxxii. Sing the Island

Is it silence or is it song when
it begins? The world, the next one,
the countless next one, blue-green,
another ocean planet, waiting to fire,
waiting to bloom, waiting to burst.

But then the Hum, the arrival,
just barely not silence itself, & yet,
& yet. Low singing, so low, searching music,
searching this new watery planet, sniffing
like a Creature for the place to arrive,
the place will sing to be the Tangled Gate.

Arrives the Island, a Beast covered
in trees, arrives & sings the Island,
sings it soft, sings it promise, sings it lure,
accept the Gate, accept the Gate,
accept the Gate. The Island will growl,
demur, beckon, let a little, let a little more.

Sing the Island a vision, a vision of what to be,
what will emerge this union from new & old dreams,
sing the Island a vision honest of old despair,
what has failed before, whyfore this new song.
Sing the Island till the Island pleases no more,
& love fires this universe once & future again.

Now comes the Gate, comes the Gate,
comes the Gate now full & hard,
sings unto the Island, arriving,
arriving, mating, binding, let a little,
let a little more. Grasping, binding, joy.

Now a conjugal song, happy wedded Hum.
The Gate grafted to the beauties of this Island,
to the new truths of this world.
The Gate crafted to sing through time,
love every last Creature of this world. Every last one.

******

xxxiii. And the Creatures

What found on the Island,
who came to the Island, how the dreams
of men fired through it all.

Always the Creatures, on every world
Emandia sought new home. Always
were the Creatures there, half-found
in what the Island itself grew, but more.

It was agreed she would come first
& if needed lead them all away again.
She was arted for this purpose, & so first.

It was the quirk in her animated nature
that caused them be. Committed to this new world,
unremembering any other, these would be her clue.

Given her kind’s yearn, their love of music,
these Creatures would live in the caverns
beneath the Tangled Gate, at the beginning.

What found on the Island,
who came to the Island, now the dreams
of men fired through it all?

These Creatures would also leave the Island,
scatter through history among the world’s
homegrown men & women, clues, like their dreams.

If you slept with a Creature in your arms
when small, dreamed the untellable,
woke wildly, the night big & silent, you were close.

As you grew, & made your ways through
the mysteries of want, & men’s answers,
you were further away. Rightly yearned those
wild, silent nights. Yes, there was unseen music.

When you no longer wondered their fate,
long given to attract to taller icons
& thicker books, they continued too.

What found on the Island,
who came to the Island, how the dreams
of men fired through it all.

When the world began to run down,
it would be again Creatures to your console,
in one form or another, loving you, leaving you this time.

For she would summon them back to her,
from all places & times, remembered some things,
& time to move along, little Creatures, time again.

So the Architect taught the Sleepers,
find the Creatures if you can,
remember which ones you knew when
small & the feeling the wild, silent
nights, the unseen music, find them when you can.
When you are near, it helps to hum,
it helps to sing, it helps to smile.
Be ready to dance as they are.

******

xxxiv. The One Who Disappeared

There was only one. She should not have
been sent. She knew everything.
How it begins & how it all ends.
She thought it was funny, like a game.

A very old man had told her when
she was small, “If you can stay awake
in your dreams, & begin to look around,
you will learn strange things.”

She told nobody, it was funnier
that way. She found her Creatures
in dreams, of course, & they welcomed
her, of course, with a dance & a song.

Her first lover, chosen more by whim
than thought, let her down,
unable to sleep awake in their tangle
of blankets & candlelight.

Her next lover seemed to know,
to touch her keys & make a better music,
but shied off her harder harmonies,
liked her to moan his night but
not caterwaul for all creation. Alas.

She came to the Sleepers with big eyes,
a little smarts, a show of tit, a little wit.
Among the first group sent across the Dreaming,
hers was the least hard task. Thus
easiest to elude when she did not return.

She pulled herself whole through the Dreaming,
no potion had brought her to. Taking the smallest
form seemed best plan for her travels & games
to come. A simple dress, big smile, laughing eyes.
Laughing, perhaps call it like a cackling too.

******

xxxv. Preparing for the Dreaming

I was the first to cross the Dreaming.
I’d done so years before anyone else,
had created a loose network of knowledge
& contacts before the rest knew, as they
still leaned on leaders & the learned
to stop the crash. I was busy.

There had to be powerful Sleep Capsules,
hundreds of them, constructed in a deep
cavern, below leaders & the wars they
reluctantly tried to slow. The capsules
would gleam white in the lamps upon them,
stoned mined in the high mountains
where the workmen labor up single file
with heavy coils on their shoulders.
It would ride in slabs down steep tracks
to where I would ferry it along.

There had to be allies who knew
we were coming, & why, who had already
traced on to our dilemma from their seeds,
some of many, & would give us both
shelter & cover to operate. I found Travelers
in many places & times, beautiful sober faced
men, eager-thighed women, these would tender
& teach us too.

Crossing the Dreaming was exhausting,
double since landing was usually in the sea.
I caused the building of a simple Pensionne
with doors from many directions. I caused
its gardens raised up, rooted it all in
many centuries & places, open to all,
but especially our Dreaming kind.

I did not cause or coax the White Tiger
to come. But when he came I knew
we weren’t alone, & my efforts not so desparate.
I knew further by stories of a Tramp
met at the Threshold of the Dreaming,
a tattered man with secret advice.

There was one I regretted leaving behind,
one Sleeper I felt an oddness for,
she never mentioned the Tramp.
When I decided to leave, I weakened
into her arms the night before.
I wanted her to take over, her to protect
them, comfort them if I failed.
She was a woman with even scanter
trinkets than the rest, but a single white shell.
She’d listen to it for hours. These are my
only regets.

******

xxxvi. Single White Shell

I listened to the sea. I listened
to the sea. I listened to the sea.
I’d curl into the blue & crimson blankets
of my Sleeping Capsule, nude with my candles
again, & listen to my single white shell.

They would listen too, from afar, they’d
quickly learned for times when I was
not visiting. They listened to the sea.
They listened to the sea. They would tend
my scars & sighs, & listen to the sea.

When you left I knew. You were too gentle
with me, tasted & possessed me to remember,
to say goodbye, like a bloom left obscure
in my heart’s chambers, to discover later,
words you didn’t have, or refused to give me.

I loved for you to listen to sea
as I slowly descended your beautiful torso,
kiss by kiss by kiss, you closed your eyes
& listened to the single white shell as I moved
your thighs apart, as I sipped your sweat,

As I licked & teased, as you listened to the sea,
its long ancient roar, its deeper hum
than all, o you listened to the sea
as I drank your seed deep into my
throat & then licked my way back to you,

to your parched mouth, your closed eyes,
I kept a part of your seed to drink
with me, drink with me, drink with me,
we drink & we listen to the sea,
together drink your seed back & forth
between us, listen to the sea,
drink your seed, goodbye my love,
listen to the seed, drink your sea,
goodbye my love, goodbye, goodbye.

******

xxxvii. Next Door

You’d not given me the key or clue
to what I knew was there, not
even that last night in my arms,
not a word. I had to find it myself.

So many lives, I sorted through them
for one. Not sweet, I needed an edge.
The dream juice I pressed harder in doses,
in dangering herbs, pressing myself in.

Found myself with too much heat to bear
& a skinny young torso to wield.
I moved from the sloppy groping romances
of boys to the charging careens of men.

Edging them close to it, jewel my body,
but don’t touch it, & burn. Clothe me close,
clothe me tight, burn by my hand in yours.
Burn hard, harder. Nothing. Lust. Nothing.

Then one, he saw me, laughed, leaned back,
sang in a cracked voice of time,
o dear sweet old dirty time leaving
all the old men sad & splayed
in a young girl’s careless smile.

He didn’t give me a necklace to light
the breasts he sought to bite.
He didn’t clothe me to tease his cynical
old cock with hints of my slender hips.
He didn’t just try to make me burst of sweet
words spoke in a flaming virgin’s ear.

He gave me a lavender candle & a furry
little friend to go my way. “You have
no within yet for yourself, why would
you want a hand or a cock in there too?”

I woke. Lit the candle & let my
friend sniff & lead the way.
We were next door to the Creatures
all along, but thousands years
apart, my friend sniffed twice,
again & again, we went together,
I carried my single white shell, my
best within, the gift I would have
given him, maybe given them all,
if only I was just a girl.

******

xxxviii. There Is No Demon

They listen to the sea in my
single white shell, & I want to
say how, give it all words, so
they will know me true, &
this something will release me.

“It was on the beach of the Island,
that first morning I came.
I’d been swimming for hours when
I washed with the tide ashore.”

They gather, listen, sniff. White Bunny,
several bears, many giraffes,
I shiver & want to say. Two blue-eyed
kittees. More sniff & near, I wonder
if the Imp will cackle up.

“I found this shell in my hand.
There weren’t any others. It was
too rocky, inhospitable, yet this shell.
I listened. I lay in tidal waters,
listening to sea.”

The Tenders among them emerge
to sniff me. I am agitated. I talk.
Talking pushes the something away a bit,
undoes my panic, I talk.

“Was I her? Was I the demon of the old stories?
I did not know as I followed her path,
followed her days, from living on the beach,
burning with the sun & moon,
to my approach to the Castle, Dancing Grounds,
the King, his temple. The Princess.”

I am convulsing they put the shell
to my ear, I feel my body
blowing itself out, they put the
shell to my ear. They begin to hum,
a brown bear with great brown eyes
leads them, humming to calm me.

“I follow her down the hall, my other,
my path, all that has led me
here, all I have done. She turns back,
sees me. I see her with my eyes,
then see me with hers. Then both.
We cry out, & it’s over. I’m awake.”

I raise up & look about this cavern,
so impossibly tall, a great tree
reaching to its heights, look at these
gathered Creatures. “I was back in
the sea, where I came from, &
I lived in silence thousands years.”

“Until?” one asks.
“I don’t know. I closed my eyes & let it all
go. Drifted upward from the depths
I’d been. Landed ashore. Not the Island.
No Island.”

The something hardly at all in me now,
I’d spoken my question & been heard.
There were no answers. I was the demon,
that’s what they’d called me, the one
who’d destroyed the King & his Island
Kingdom.

“There is no demon,” they say. I resist.
“No,” they insist.
I return to the Sleepers cavern, thousands
years later, to my capsule, its crimson
& purple blankets. The Creatures are always
with me now. We listen together
to the single white shell, & often hum, to sing.

******

xxxix. The Tramp

I had a friend, he was a small exotic,
never knew a word he said. I’d visit
his desert shack, we’d sit on two small stools.
He’d cluck away for hours on end.
We were happy old friends. I’d visit
when I could. Then a day his shack
was empty & he no more.

I tell you this because crossing
the Dreaming is how I felt that
morning, coming to see my friend
at his desert shack. Shack locked.
No stools. Nothing. Crossing the Dreaming,
you will bind, you will be broken,
you will be bereft. You’ll return home,
if you can.

Maybe you’ll come back. You’ll try again.
You want to save the world, it matters,
nothing else is as important to you.
You’ll leave family, sweethearts,
the bleak sadness of your end-times.
You’ll see me again, nod, pass, we’ll
have fewer words. What more could I say?

I could tell you my story, how I
became the Tramp who greets
Sleepers crossing the Dreaming.
I could tell you that once we
didn’t need potions & Sleep Capsules
to cross. I could tell you I remained
when the rest turned away toward spikes
to mark the earth, map it, name it,
burn its trees, siphon its fluids, black
its skies, poison its waters. I could
tell you that what you try to save
is what the force of mankind has
been destroying all along.

Or I could tell you that since my friend
has been gone, my step has grown
more & more heavy. I am the Tramp.
I could compel you feel how I walk,
& test your own by it. As you pass
me each time, a nod, a brief word,
a world to save, I could tell you
that what you left behind is what
miracle this world has left to give
you. And the rest are just heavier
steps on your path.

I could tell you this. But I just nod,
think of my friend, maybe I’m wrong of it all.

******

xl. My Tangled Gate

No more musics for now.
The air is still as I breathe in & out.
The stars dark, the woods bright.
I am dreaming. I am awake.
I love the stories, whatever they mean.
I miss the boy I was years ago.
I live on because men are hopeful
for tomorrow, whatever odds or proof
stand before them.

******

xli. Sacral

Wakes. She wakes. The pain in her back
grabs her breath & she wilds for air
among covers. A snatch, another,
there. A noise outside, which world
this time? Oh. Dogs barking. Oh.

Lies back. That dream. The Island.
A breath not hers. A man’s shoulder,
his bare chest. Still sleeping. Quicks her
query.

Closes her eyes, mostly, feels it out.
A taste on her tongue. His? No spilled
seed tastes like this. It tingles. It . . . listens?

There is the softest hmmm on her skin,
in her breath, in the air. Her nose
twitches, twitches? & sniffs something potent,
mysterious, important. The man sudden
harasses his covers. She sniffs again. Just his scent,
on him, lingering on her.

Shuts her eyes more, dares. That dream.
Its barest remain. A question she tugged
from it, maybe a thread back in. How?
What rhymes with the moon?
What rhymes with the moon?

She relaxes, tries to gentle into this body,
its pale-rose, bone contoured heat.
The man is here for its pleasures, perhaps
nothing more.

And her? Something to do with the Hummm
in the air. He’d led her closer somehow,
his voice, that instrument in the corner
of the room, among their tangled clothes.

Remembers. Oh. The pain that’d awaked her was her own
making, her alarum, the Hummm plainest
in early morning, when the lights from windows
& those within have not fully reassembled
this world’s architecture from its dream bolts & limbs.

******

xlii. Iris

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
The beginnings of a new knowing? More colors?
Wilder music. No questions. No destiny. No why.

None else but to sing true. Singing,
the air soft, biteless, the full moon
teasing a hint like always. She dances.

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
Her head full of the cavern spring she’d found
that day, how following it had excited her,
how she felt it would come to somewhere,
bring her somewhere, follow, follow,
bring me home. Bring me home.

I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what to expect.

Come to the great field, the tall costumes
of pirates & panda bears, the mocking shouts
about human-hacked worlds & what so much
left, how much the rest? Sun slithered
away, eventide, full moon coming on
like a virgin getting her fine due at last
& carry on now, carry hours on.

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
This universe a myth, a bite, a shiver.
She follows through decoration & bonfire
to the music, the drums, yes, the shouts,
yes. The guitars, there, yes. Closer she comes,
more it’s her body they strum.

I don’t know who I am this time. My body
is finding someone to explain.

I find you playing more animal than mind
& I near, & I near you. You strum your
instrument & there are words but
I displease deep into your mind, touch
there, & there, listen to this in your ear,
now hum. Hummmmmm. Yes. There.

Whatever I am, I call down the moon
upon you, & the clearing is empty but us.

You stop strumming & smile. Kneel before me.
A few magical earthy nuggets to feed me,
a drink of water to wash me down.

Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
I don’t know who I am this time.
“I am thousands of years old,” I say
in your embrace, “but you will hum & explain.”

Somewhere, someone, who & who in
the world by light. Dream of the
cavern’s running water releases her
to his soft hand on her breast, tender,
her thighs sore by hard play. “You don’t
taste a thousand years old,” he growls.

I thrash for your guitar to give bones
the night’s dreams. “Play.” “Sing?”
“Hum.” He strums simply man-hard
at first, her fine ass, biting her tits
to hear her cry. But then I move atween
your thighs & begin to play you with
my fingers & tongue. My turn to scratch
& bite, my turn to squeeze & listen,
squeeze harder & listen.

But you’re the musician, you’ve fucked
many a girl with a strange idea.
Playing with me upon your prick
is a game, & I like it, like it
more, & my playing thickens, yowls
to the stretching cock veins in your
laps, my hummm summons dragonflies
& mountain lions, finally I melt
into knowinglessness, release to
the wordless cream of being.

She drinks him in, & in, dry & drier,
empty & shriveled, all nerves smiling
& gone.
The cavern. My friends.
The Island. The Gate. Why am I here?

You were not a girl. You were a thousand
years old. I don’t know what you are.

I embraced it all. I let it all go.
No questions. No destiny. No why.
I am & I sing true always now,
& just for you.

******

xliii. Disenthrall

I know nothing. I am nobody.
There is no answer. There is sadness &
morning light. The Hum always &
it is beautiful, & it tells me nothing.

I startle & awake. The musician
is gone yet searches for me.
I hear his music still, hear it deepen,
hear it sadden. Less becoming art,
or appeal, more a simple burning warmth
for lonely hearts open to it, light
to show them their path on. But he
never stays. He searches.

The cavern. My friends.
The Island. The Gate. Why am I here?
Why can’t I be there with you?

One morning I walk out into this world
& there is dirty snow piled against
the streets, & birds twittering & chuckling
the air, & I look into faces as they pass,
& I listen in a little, to each’s bright tangle.
Look down at my own hands. Clench, unclench.

I sniff the trees scattered through
the city, they are ill, they languish.
I sniff deeper. They despair especially of me.

I kneel & beg for more but nothing.

A soft hand on my shoulder. Two bright
tangled faces. “Are you alright, Miss?”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you.”

They offer me water & nuts. Help me
to a bench, look me over close,
do not sniff but nearly so.

We begin to travel together. It’s what
they do. Their knapsacks & walking sticks,
water pouches & good eyes for camping
& not too long. They sleep in one blanket
& gift me the other. Feed me. Tend me.

Then I dream of the Musician. He has
followed me to the caverns, my friends.
Stands looking at me.

“I can’t love you. It’s not what
I am for. Understand.”
He strums. My friends come closer,
the White Bunny, turtle that isn’t
a turtle. Even the combustible imp
stills a little, listens. He strums more.

“No.”
“You can’t get there alone. It’s not how
it works. You need my song. I will keep
playing for you. Keep listening.”

I know nothing. I am nobody.
I awake to sadness & morning light.
These Travelers cannot help me.
They feed me. They tend me.

It happens unhappily on morning
at market. Their kind gesture to the son
of the wrong man. He strikes & kills one
of the Travelers without pause. Would kill
the other but my hand goes out. He disappears.
His song cries out, & I relent. But I cannot
bring the dead one back.

Kneeling over the dead Traveler,
I realize the Hum has left him.
The crying of the other, the fear of
the gathered crowd. The son
huddled close his returned father.
The father panting, eyeing me, waiting.

Music. I hear the Musician strumming.
Strumming a path away, it lights
& waits too. I want to bring
the other Traveler, help bury her friend,
mourn with her.

No. The music compels me separate.
“It’s their peace to make. It’s yours
to go now.”

I don’t understand but sniff.
The path he plays is true & true
as any Creature. I walk it,
slowly, leading away from the city
streets & their trees.

But this: the trees less despairing
now as I walk it.

******

xliv. Errata

Would you save this world,
you will suffer this world.

Would you love this world,
you will suffer this world.

Would you know this world,
you will suffer this world.

She wakes. It always begins
with the Creatures.

Looks at me. “Why?”
I say nothing. These White Woods
are quiet, still, but murky, unsettled.
The trees are tall. There is no path. We walk.

You listen, stop, listen more urgently.
There it is . . . the Hummm . . . always the Hummm . . .

“The Creatures?”
“No. It’s the Gate.”
Nods. You are smaller than me. Still,
shaped like a girl. I am tall & clumsy.
Waits my eyes return to hers, smiles.
“The Creatures?”

I nod. Take you hand. “They protect
as they can. They are often small &
vulnerable, so they attract our touch,
our slow breath to care, to sing.
To protect. Tell secrets to. Cry with.”

I think. “They came with you from
Emandia. You came here, one of many,
to many worlds, & you survived,
you & the other.”

She nods. We sit together, against
a white trunk, the light is murky
but the air calm. Not not telling.

“Is this helping you?” I ask.
“Is it helping you?” she replies, sharply,
still smiling.

I close my eyes, try to breathe my best
& make it words. Scribble, speak.
“Would you save this world, you will
suffer this world. Would you love
this world, you will suffer this world.
Would you know this world, you will
suffer this world.

“It has to mark you, before & after
you decide. You have to travel
its places & years. Feel immortal
some moments, worse than despair
others. You have to grow green.
You have to be a predator of a
thousand kinds. You have to be prey.
The kind that escapes & the kind
that doesn’t, or somewhat doesn’t.”

She is listening. I’m nowhere yet
but trying.

I think. Draw deep into my mind’s pen.
“The myth does not end with you choosing
to stay. It continues. It’s open-ended.
You’re committed.”

“So what do I do?”

I pause, think. The skies above now
powerfully starred. That’s good.
That’s something.

I hold out my hand. Nod. Again. Insist.

There is a soft cackle. Another.

The black & white imp sudden in my hand.
Crazy eyes. The Princess stares.

I hold out the imp for show. She
gnaws my palm, waiting.

“Is she from Emandia?”
She looks at me. Nods. Shakes her head.
“Exactly. You brought something here
to this world, made somewhere else,
but grown here.” Pause. Give a little
shake to dis-jaw. “Talk!”

She looks at me, crazy wide-eyed.
“Eh?” A dead old lady. A mock.
“Talk!”

She cackles, high & low, click-clicks
& noise-noises for extra pepper,
scans lazily for escape routes.

“Just one word. And you can go.”

She stares upon me, a thousand feet &
an inch tall. Nods, I think. Blows me
a kiss, a spark, “fire,” all light,
all dark, & she’s gone.

I nod. The Princess breathes hard.
“OK. But when then?”
“To be here is to be vulnerable,
to feel alone. To age. To regret.
To die, or feel like it.”

My abilities gone.
Yes.
Mortal.
Yes.
Can I die?
Yes. And no.

I don’t think it’s that straight. Once
you occupy a body, even when it dies,
it bleeds & dusts back to earth,
its years awl the world, its breathing,
its being, changes the world.

Nothing is truly gone, and yet forms
rise & fall. We mourn their passing,
fear our own. We don’t find enough
comfort in memories or markers or songs.
We try, but the years corner us,
again, & again, take & do not return
by our will.

“Creatures,” you say again.
I nod. “Creatures.”
She stands up. Helps me up too.
She grasps me close for a moment,
giving me more than I ask because
I try. And she’s gone.

[For a moment I let Creatures
near me, more & more of them.
The White Bunny. Her hedgehog companion.
The little black bear who hummms.
The purple furry Creature, dancing
with ribbons & bows. Not a word.

[They all sniff me twice, as more
come into view. Bloo-eyed Kittees.
A number of bears. The giraffes, of course.

[Look at each other, as though sniffs
being compared. As though necessary.

[The White Bunny hops up to my shin,
a raised pink nose & I lift her up. I do.

[Leans into my ear. With a paw’s gesture
& a soft word. “Scribble Scribble Scribble.”
By way of advice. By way of mojo.
By way of command too.]

I nod. “Help me. Please.”
They nod. I sit among them &
we sniff far, find the Princess
as she undresses, as she sleeps.
Lets the breathing blanket that is
her body arrive completely. Dreams.
Dreams good.

******

xlv. Prince of Nothing

He was the prince, of nothing at all.
A great shouldered black man,
with long blonde hair, who I met
as I was leaving the White Woods.
Kneeling hunched over a dead fire,
staring hard into nothing at all,
as though, just gone, it had been a better world.

I sniffed twice, & joined him in kneeling.
He turned to me after awhile, after dark,
& I felt like his compensation for what
he’d just seen, just lost. We buried
that dead fire, buried it good, & became
the lightest, laughingest, of lovers.
Whatever I am, whatever I was.

We long traveled & there were nights
when I made him love me so that
I could remember. Our hips would slip
& grind, I’d gnash him deeper, till it hurt,
& I would see. My childly bedroom wall.
Me dreaming. Its gaping passage in.
He would hold me aloft till crying
sweat & then bellow all the night
into me, that better world, new just gone.

We had to part. High surf just outside
our door, an abandoned inn but for
its many hallways of sparkling ghosts. We had
to part. Standing the inmost
hall, a great glass tribute to a drowned
whale, the hands of long gone guests
impressed into the glass’s surface.
We had to part. “I’ll come again.”
His leaving smile. “You always do.”

He was my prince, of nothing at all.
A great shouldered black man,
with long blonde hair, who I met
as I was leaving the White Woods.
Kneeling hunched over a dead fire,
staring hard into nothing at all,
as though, just gone, there was a better world.

The time in walking silence, holding my limbs
at night alone. Eventually the new tastes of food.
A long morning shower. A brush through my hair.

Now come to this city, a green city on the sea,
& the remaining loneliness to find who I need,
& the remembrance of his love to believe that I can.

******

xlvi. The Head & the Tail

My childly bedroom. Me dreaming.
Into the tunnels. Into the cavern.
Great cavern with its great tree,
heightless height. Me breathing lighter
than ever. Please don’t let it end.

Wake. I wake & wild for air among
my covers. The pain in my back I need
& cannot anyway rid. A snatch. Another.
There. A noise outside. Which world
again this time? Dogs barking. Oh.

Wait, that. A jangling song still. On my
bedstand a pink radio shaped like a cat.
I’d seen it in a store of old things. I sympathize.
I am an old thing too. Wearing by day
the long dresses & crushed scents of girls,
who wonder to know their single, brief lives.
Mortal, too, like them. Not really.

On the floor of my room, schoolbooks.
This is what the young do. They excitedly culture
their minds with the political & godly myths
of their land & time. I read it, & so little
of it makes sense. They cut off the head &
the tail of history’s snake & study its remaining
length like an answer.

I am lonely. No White Bunny. No turtle
not a turtle. No giraffes. No tiny imp.

But not not them either. For however
my days are, call the mud of the streets
truths, brightest stars in the skies, lying to be
among them, my nights are for the cavern,
for its truer truths, what lost, what remembered.
The great tree. Heightless height.

I am lonely. Go to taverns with the other
students. Drink the poisons they all
smiling down. Sloppily crash pathways
to their own honest feelings. They are lonely.
It feels good to dance & sing. It feels good
to fuck.

Men hardly more than boys sniff me
& I remind myself I look barely more
than a girl. They sniff this slender body
but not its mind thousand thousand
years old. They smile, shyly approach.

I try to love them like the Prince,
the Musician before him, but they cry,
they bleed, they break. Only once,
hands tied, legs bound apart,
a blindfold & gag for focus. You shudder
so hard inside me. Ahhhhhh.
Someone there. Breathing softly. Behind the wall.

Soon none of the students will drink
with me or fuck me. A little lost.
I close my curtains, close my door.
Dream in my bed always. Unwilling the no.

Hurling my slight childly dream body
against the wall, again, again.
Aches, breaks. Again, again.

“Princess.”
I pause, heaving.
“Princess!”
“Yes! You’re there.”
“I am. Please stop.”
“I’m in & shut out both. Why? What that
useless waking life?”
“I think . . . it’s not enough to suffer.”
“What else?”
“You have to confess what you believe,
who you believe in, stand by them
while the world disdains.”
“What do I do?”
“I’ll see you.” I wake. Pain. ****.
Clock radio. Schoolbooks.

I knew you in the store right away.
A toy. Yet my friend. Turtle not a turtle.
I carried you home like the whole world
now had a gape to remembered light.
I smiled to nobody’s know, I listened.

The professor talks of evolution. Life from
a sparked speck in the sea. I look at you
in my bag, knowing the beginning, how it ended
last time, what I am doing now.
Confess what I believe.

“This world is not alone among worlds.
This universe is a blooming garden.
Seeds landed here, & took.” Someone laughs.
Maybe someone else listens. The Professor
frowns & warns me of science learned
from television, between the ads
for sweets & beer.

I raise mine eyes to you, really, lay mine eyes
upon you. Let you have my clothes,
let them undress you into my grasp,
will you into my breathing, kiss you
into my insist, let you feed my breast
feeding you, my love, my stupid mortal
love, ah, now within me you see,
not the girl who would fuck & be consumed
by you, no, a star, oh what a fucking
supernova burst in your mind, a moment,
just a moment. A garden. Seeds landed. Took.
You shudder like a woman. Just. Like.

Tonight I sleep smiling with you in
my arms, & in the morning wake
to you studying my face.

“What rhymes with the moon?”
I smile. Boop your little nose.
“I don’t know either.”

******

xlvii. The World a Myth, a Light, a Shimmer

This world sexes up soft & close for a story,
where the bones & chaos & blood
might be aligned, dance a friendly tune,
& so I mull what I am trying to do
& how to make my need into a pleasing myth.

We find a typing machine in that old shop,
& Boop dresses my hair long with flowers.
I undress to write, offer myself plain
to the Imp in the Moon, help me to tell it,
help me to sing it, make them heed.

We begin in the local park, where some
sleep & others grow vegetables. Boop
will not have me go naked for the weather,
but I will make their men listen with little
more in dress. I hold my sheaf in the cold
sunlight, & begin to read the words.

“There is a cavern, far below the earth,
many tunnels lead to it, & we find
ourselves watching as many Creatures
gather, sniff twice, wonder what music,
what games this time?” I read words of these things
I know in my heart, stronger, summoning.

“There is on the surface high above this cavern
an Island, & within that Island a Woods,
a Castle, a Tower, a Dancing Grounds, & a
Gate. A Tangled Gate.” They listen,
they gather. I have hardly begun to tell
& yet more of them. Some for my breasts,
loose among veils. Some because the words
remember in them something. I read &
read again what I have brought until Boop
pulls me to rest in my chamber.

“They believe books, Princess. As much
as you in that park.”
I nod. Let there be books. In them
I tell all of the stories I remember,
describe every small friend I’ve loved &
now miss.

They believe. Many of them. Would me
tell many more stories. But something
about it. Cruelty, dirt, war. Each sweeps
his own front step. Someone paid
tends the park where I still read.
Many who listen still have no home.
The Way of the Creatures is, to these devotees,
a sweet candied dream.

I withdraw again. It matters. It doesn’t.
I have no more place among them to tend good
anymore than their legends of suffering
supermen & body-loathing gurus.

“You despair, Princess.”
“I am angry and helpless. We do nothing
here. I’ve changed little with my hands,
my voice, my beliefs.”

I sleep, days, dreamless, until again
the full moon, its delighted Imp.

Boop & I drink a tea of earth creatures,
found in the park, I let my body
accelerate by them, I take Boop’s paw,
him too, we travel the distance,
the light soft & solid beneath our feet
as we climb, to arrive, to arrive.

A mile & an inch high before us,
a delighted, mocking smile at our visit,
waiting, not waiting.

“Give me a useful word, imp,” I command, ask.
“Eh?” her look unknowing the world below
& its words.
“Just one,” I say softly. Lift her in my hand,
palm up, for her to snap & bite at.

“Nothing saves the world, this time
or any other. Dreams are the salve
for this.”

Wait. What? She is staring at me, said
these words? Turn palm down to dis-jaw.
She cackles, high & low. Click-clicks &
noise-noises. A face in my mind now,
as she’s shooing us away. Dreams the salve
for failure. This man’s face.
I will not accept this as enough.

******

xlviii. Orphans

Water, cold. Salt water, splashing.
Choking to the surface, flailing.
Another. There is another. We are
together yet we can’t help each other,
except to begin to drown together.

A net. Tangled & dragged & choking
suddenly both air & water & strong hands
on us both, I feel her hand in mine
for a moment. Squeeze. We are saved.
Then we fall apart again as they take a look.

We are guised as girl children & they
remember to cover us up. That look
of wonder & loathing remains with me.
From curiosity to greed as we are reckoned
the King’s prize. A reward. Other considerations.
But two? They study us in our wet
blankets & I find her hand again.
She’s more terrified than me. I breathe us
together calm. Breathe, sister. Breathe.

We’re bundled off to separate places
on this old fishing boat. Another docks
along side it that night. You were taken.
You were terrified & taken from me.
I am so sorry. I remember now.

I being to wake, to cry out, but Boop
nuzzles me close, Hmmms deep into
my grasp, draws me back in. These
earth creatures are telling what
I should know. There’s more.

Eventually I am clothes in more than
a wet blanket & the sniffs of me
remain no more. The King will have
his prize unmarked & we will have
our reward. Paltry compared to the
Travelers’ gift, but his protection is more.

The ship lands on the Island as I have
been thrust into a small windowless room
to clean from a pot & dress in cut-down
clothes. I am transferred from one
tall set of weathered hands to smoother,
gentler ones. Still, the same wonder,
the same loathing. It is night when we
arrive & so I see little of where I’ve
come, where I shall long be.

At last, a room. A bedchamber. The door
closed behind me. There are soft clothes
on the bed but I push them aside &
simply strip down. I feel the salt water
still, deeper than bathing. I feel my sister’s
hand. Her terror. I sit on this soft bed
& look about me at the shapes of a
princess’s bedroom.

“I’m not a Princess,” I say softly.

Toward dawn exhaustion softly takes
me under & I feel myself slipping back
deep into the waters, this time willing,
this time I know she’s there.
We will go together.

A movement in the room. I withdraw
from waters & see there is something
about the wall opposite my bed.
I crawl, stumble toward it. A . . . hole?

An odd-shaped hole in the wall, big
enough to let me crawl through.
I do. Nude & unknowing as I am
of all this, I crawl through that
hold to the first of many tunnels.

The White Bunny. The many giraffes & bears.
The crazy imp. The turtle not a turtle.
“Boop!”
“Yes, Princess?”
“How does this help us? I’ll wake soon
& all this long gone. How are the
earth creatures helping?”
“They brought me.”

I start & look. A big, heavy, bald-headed
man. Leather covered in ink decorations & jewelry.
Now I am not in the cavern & tunnels.
Just this room. Schoolbooks. Pink cat radio.

He eyes me but not as a man. Humor,
not wonder & loathing. “I’m Benny
Big Dreams.”

Keeping held together, “I’m Iris.”
“You’re the Princess.”
“Yes. And no.”
He laughs, good & fleshed out for a
dream figure. “I’ll help you as I can.”

A sudden pound at the door. “Keep the sex noises
down to a dull roar! Note everybody’s
getting some!” I still my Hmmm,
music to thank the earth creatures
their gifts. My sister. My path.

******

xlix. Crossing New Worlds, Part 1

I don’t see Benny Big Dreams again soon.
My days are quiet. I go out again
to the park, tending vegetables, my hands
greedy to rake into the good cold soil.
There are earth creatures nearby &
this calms me too. They know this world
well & remain cheerful despite all.

Sometimes men approach me. Lonely.
Sad. Mostly, wanting. Looking at me &
wanting more than I have or know to give.
Moments, when they are deep inside me,
I am able to do a little something. Heal a bit.
Undo some of the fray. They pull out of me,
wondering, sometimes scared. Measuring
their cocks for possible loss.

It gets colder. I am not doing well.
My body is worn from sadness,
from the casual harm some men do me.
I stop going out again.

“Princess.”
We are under all of our blankets.
A thick brown one especially, covered
in bear faces. Protecting us as they can.

“Princess!”
“We have to find Benny.”

Boop makes us a tea, brewed from the rest
of the earth creatures we have, &
he makes us both drink of them & chew them down.

“You’re not well,” says softly, breaking love.
“We’ll ask Benny,” I say & hug him.

Benny likes us to find each other as though
by chance in one tunnel or another.
Annoyed but I look. This time he makes
it harder.

“Benny! Benny Big Dreams!” My dream body
& voice are fine & full & intimidating.
He emerges, as though from rock. Bows,
mocking. Wondering at what he is
would lead me wondering what I am.
I simply talk instead.

“I need your help.”
He eyes me. “You’re stalled.”
“Worse.”
Nods. “What are you trying to do?”
I start. Think. “The world is going to die
again. I can’t let it.”
He laughs. “Can’t you just save it again?
A twitch of your comely nose?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure.”
Now he’s serious. “You need to become sure.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
He stares me bluntly. “The world loses something
in the saving. It’s a little weaker after.
You can’t save it perpetually, even if you wanted.”

He speaks softly now. “You lose something
in the saving too.”
“Just tell me, Benny.” I feel Boop stiffen
beside me, but say nothing.
“What did the imp say to you?”
“That the world can’t be saved. That dreams
salve this failure.”
I weaken a little & he holds me, lightly but
protecting. “You don’t believe her.” I shake
my head. “I can’t. There must be something.”

“Tell the stories again, Iris. But tell
new ones, of a good place. Make it real
as dreams are. Make it safe, for Creatures
new & old.
“Creatures? But they live here, in these
caves & tunnels.”
He nods. “Yes, & in this new place you will create.”
“Will I live there?”
“Do you wish it?”
“No. I can’t. I can only live near. With Boop.”
“There’s more.” His voice so gentle I am ready
to cry aloud.
I nod.
“You’ll let go living in this world for that
one. Your powers will spend there to create
but depart here.”
“Will it help?”
He cackles softly, in reply.

******

l. Crossing New Worlds, Part 2

I hesitate. I let days pass by.
There’s more to do before letting go
the world. There must be.

I am feeling a little better. Warmer days.
Boop has found me more earth creatures &
medicine. I don’t ask what. And it’s only
to keep me going for awhile. While I decide.

Then I find him, a new friend. He is a . . .
little beagle puppy. I am asked to find him
& take care of him.

“Where, Princess? Who is asking?” Boop’s look
is obvious.
I think. “She came to me in a dream.
She said ‘find him & take care of him
while I am gone.’” Boop nods, sighs.
Together we dress me in my old earth
creatures shirt & dress, he flowers my hair
like old, & we go out. Him not in my
knapsack, though. I carry him in my arms,
despite his worry.

We walk down to the park. A few
of those living there remember my stories
still. Smile at me. Would protect me if need be.
I gave them something to keep.

Then on to the markets. To the toy store
where I found Boop himself.

There. On an empty shelf. It’s him.
“‘Algernon,’ she told me he’s called,” I say
to Boop. “But she calls him Sonnyboy.”

We return to our room. He is new
& scared but he feels among friends
now. He calms.

Delaying, feeling stronger. I find a job.
I begin to tend my battered body.
It’s hard to do & I do not heal fully,
but there are a few months, I remember,
even now, when we three lived together
in that room.

We lived together & I would go to my job
every day. I would leave Boop & Algernon
in the window to watch the day &
wait for my return. I would return
in the evening, cook food, & they would
tell me what they saw. The light
passing differently on sunny & stormy
days. Loud games in the street. The scents
of wild berries & car exhaust. Tired faces,
distracted & worried. They watched.

On Saturdays I would heap them into
my knapsack, & go to the cinema.
I would sneak Boop & Algernon into my lap &
eat my chocolate & little sack of popcorn.
For awhile, not a Princess nor a Saviour.
Just three good friends.

After a few weekly visits, it seemed
like it was the same film every week,
which was strange. Stranger too is
that the story advanced each time.

It was called RemoteLand. It began,
sometimes, with a car crash, sometimes
in reverse. Then it got stranger.
The story shifted to an Island. A Kingdom.
A tall Castle, a Tower, Dancing Grounds.

Then one week, a Gate. Telling my story
though strangely with others peopling it.
“Benny,” I growled.

He would not confess the film his doing.
Just his usual nudgings for me to act.
“Soon, Iris, soon.”

One day I did not go to work.
I could not get out of my bed.
Boop & Algernon clung to me with terror.

“OK, Benny,” I said aloud to the dark room,
its dusty schoolbooks. Its long unplayed
pink radio shaped like a cat.

Benny came for Algernon to bring him
to the new place when it was time.
“Trust me, Princess.” I had no choice as I let him go.

Boop & I huddled together, no force of dreams
or nature would rent us. Earth creatures
now filled my room since I was ready,
& did not have to drink or eat them.
We went together, letting go to make new,
letting go to make new.

I will see my sister again. I will
see Algernon again.

In this new place I create, I take
a new name. I am Christina, sometimes
Chrisakah. The maker. The creator.
The guardian of another new land.
Crissy, for short.

We leave that room behind & come
to this new place, where Boop & I
will dwell alone all of our days,
friends to & guardians of this other new place.

Our new home is green & hilly. The air is cool
& lovely. I wish my friends from the park
could live here in peace. But I have left them
with my trace & no further. Benny will gentle
their dreams sometimes, he promised me.

“There should be a Castle, Princess.”
I shake my head. “I’m not a Princess.
I never was.”

Boop stares me down despite his shortness
to my own. “A castle we will build
together. It can be . . . fun.”

“Fun?” I smile. Remember how.
“Like your stories. Rooms that come & go.
& visitors too.”
“From where?”
“From the new place you will help
to create.”

I nod. A Guardian who is
a Princess living in a Castle.
Boop will be my servant though I beg
him not to be. He is sure. This will work.

I am not alone as the days pass.
I live with Boop in our Castle.
No dancing grounds. No Gate.
It’s all Gate now. Benny cackles. The imp nods.

And so my story, from pieces I sometimes
remember & so this picture to view.
I call my new home Imagianna perhaps
with more hope that I have.

One fine day, the finest, the beagle
comes to the new land I have helped
to create. I learn it is called Bags End.
I think of the Red Bags & nod.
One day them too.

He doesn’t remember me. Only who
I took care of him for. His long-lost
Mommy Beagle.

But he likes me & likes when I tell him
stories. Likes it so much I arrange for
my old typing machine to find its way
into Bags End so that he can tell
that place’s new stories.

My bedchamber is the same as it was
on the Island long ago. Boop sleeps
in my grasp, as always.

Sometimes I let us dream & find
the old hole in the wall, & return
again to the tunnels & cavern below
the Tangled Gate. But it’s only dreams,
I know. Imagianna is where we are now.

[Benny nods. Keeps his distance mostly.
It’s for the best. Nothing’s gone. Nothing goes away.
Nothing returns. He does not see in time,
then & now & hence. All points connect.
Not yet for Crissy to remember this.

[But he knows her sister is still looking
for her. Her sister has forgotten nothing.
Her sister is nearing Imagianna
all the time, no time, every time. Soon.]

******

[Cenacle]

*** Many Musics, IX, xxxi, “Sleepers,” “History is the stuff of blood and bone” - more than books or famous names, but visceral moments accumulating, feeding, affecting, forward and back…
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxii, “Sing the Island,” a sort of cosmic marriage and creation poem ...as far as I’ve seen thus far...
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxiii, “And the Creatures,” a poem about the secrets so close yet often go unseen…
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxiv, “The One Who Disappeared,” yet another variation on the Imp who is in many of these poems in different ways…
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxv, “Preparing for the Dreaming,” the Sleeper are heroes who travel through time from far into the future, trying to save things, heal history of its fatal wounds...
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxvi, “Single White Shell,” an erotic cosmic love song, of sorts, I think it’s very pretty….
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxvii, “Next Door,” the girl in these poems travels a very strange path along her way….
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxviii, “There Is No Demon,” she is with the Creatures, bringing her doubts of who she is to them, & trying to heed their assurances…
*** Many Musics, IX, xxxix, “The Tramp,” a weird figure who has little appeared in these poems, yet seems very important to cross the Dreaming…
*** Many Musics, IX, xl, “My Tangled Gate,” I felt burnt out of poems, building a world clod by clod into existence, felt back a little while...

[Cenacle]

*** Many Musics, IV, xli, Sacral - This is the story of Iris, the girl is exists in multiple places across time and place, and her self-discovery . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xlii, - Iris - Iris’s romance with a musician, but she can never stay long . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xliii, Disenthrall - Iris meets some Travelers, and goes with them awhile . . . but her destiny is the Island, the Creatures, the Tangled Gate . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xliv, Errata - Iris & the Author talk, and conclude: the Creatures
*** Many Musics, IV, xlv, Prince of Nothing - Iris takes a strange lover, laughs, sees her childhood bedroom in a vision . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xlvi, The Head & the Tail - Iris struggles through her days & dreams of her friends at night, until something wonderful happen . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xlvii, The World a Myth, a Light, a Shimmer - The TG myth turns upon itself, becomes a myth-within-a-myth, & Iris deeper probes for answers . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xlviii, Orphans - Iris deep in a mushroom vision of her Princess times on the Island, and she meetings the Oneironaut, Benny Big Dreams . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, xlix, Crossing New Worlds, Part 1 - Iris negotiates with Benny the creation of a magical new place . . .
*** Many Musics, IV, l, Crossing New Worlds, Part 2 - Iris helps to create Bags End, a Victorian-style fantasyland in the spirit of Oz, Wonderland, Neverland, Hundred Acre Wood, and she and her friend Boop come to a new home, Imagianna . . . I am combining here many of my writings in one place . . . crossing new worlds . . .