No, no, no. Not because I can’t -- I can- but I won’t. Not now -- not ever with or without its amen, amen.
Even when asked -- she pleaded for this with the smell of weeds and roses about her. No, no, and no again, now and always, for it will always be demanded of me but I will not give it.
Negation as affirmation -- this is my weapon in my battles and wars though there is but one war I’m engaged in. Old warriors I am come amongst you to be what I must and will be -- your warrior-strength to the strength of my hand nor forgetting the mind’s fortitude and aptitude for matters yet unfinished or begun.
And the sea before me, the sea behind me, the sea on my right side, the sea on my left side. The mothering surf. From here across it yet let not your silence come upon me but wave after wave of utterance.
She also pleaded for utterance but I would not make it.
These shabby rags -- inheritance and a broken pot whereas I in the cauldron will stir…
As a foretime so be it hereafter. And I will prove myself thrilling to the wind. Other lands, other tongues. Tongues of fire to cast the earth in tongues of fire. In exile to be. From this place tonight. From the dark and dank wood. No patria.
Yet a mind held aloft like a signalman with a lantern (he who holds up the light is the light)
Yet I see them gathered who are gathered against me. How brightly my eyes flash against them. How even my footprints will be spoken of. How my triumphs will burn the wind! Even the sunlight will be jealous as I outshine the dullness and sluggishness of these days. So let my pride be arrogance unto the meanness of this town -- what do I care?
They cannot abide me and I will not abide here when on the waves of the sea I will ride -- see, I stride the dolphins of my desire. Young Angus to the ancient town who will undo its culpability.
And today day zero of my calends.
Breaking all to remake all to the new delineations -- see me, I am fire to old wood. For I have become the gathering and the dispersal. Cauterising the wounds of my soul - I am wounded but not grievously so. Nor maimed into silence where the ways of words will gather about me to goodly ends.
And flocks of twittering sparrows in my hair.
The laurel leaves already about me and glistening in the sun.
So now must I instruct a Greek dilemma to their minds -- which is my Greek dilemma, and under what stone can I place my sword? Or enter the chapel perilous with a smile on my mouth and a brash glance. Or draw it out of stone according to the prophecy I will fulfil under this thunderous rain? (ye gods of Greece I will accept no answer that is not my own)
See them, newly come to inquisit the air about them who do not yet flash in the sun. That out of such formlessness I should form… - to kneel, perhaps, but in what adoration or in kneeling to espouse the counter- prayer I yet might impart as has been given me by those few warriors I treasure.
Taking from the store-house but adding to the store-house like some sly prophet in the agora but not yet the proffered chalice to my lips. More to my liking are these buds of summer as my symbol -- and not Greek but solid English as my weapon -- sharpened on those stones (how the stones themselves are sharp) like a causeway for those who are dispossessed of weeds and roses (I am so dispossessed like one with the nudity of a god)
Nor death songs about me to the flickering of candles (espouse that my true brethren, ye few, ye fewer, ye none, for that is and will be my true instruction my true admonishment)
Unto the beauty of which…
As is now and will be -- world without to the world within.
Into my innards as into no other (there is no other than I who can do this) Espousing only the fecund verb To Be (I will also be thus espoused) --but to their quizzing minds I am already ancient who nonetheless would place about me a ring of offering stones (hail disciples for your glittering tribute!)
That I be unto you also what I will be unto myself: see my stealth in this, my subversions of the modalities, my pennant flashing in the air above me.
O defiance!
Yet unto these my little ones…
Unto them as be unto all of us in our needs “yet you will, will you not, acknowledge the dogmas? -- I will not, and if such is to be my transgression, against history no less as has been given from the old days, days of that woman’s betrayal through the womb of time -- metronome of my blood and sinews.
O mothering sea shelter us from history again, the ongoing purge. As it was in the beginning.
Shall we say… no, no, no -- resistance (I have made of it the perfect armour yet I am pierced)
Yet still the living gather about me -- questions and accusations-- that Greek dilemma as ever it was and will be. No end to it nor as they quiz my quizzing heart.
That perpetual light may shine and cancel the dilemmas with light abounding “But surely you…?--
No, no, no -- not that I can’t-I can- but I won’t, and see, listen, see the old thunder rumbles again and nothing is resolved.
Who now will gather the bushels of light? That unto us be born. Also of the low ones of the world. By which name we might…
The unfinished sentence everywhere low light abounding now just above the trees.
O abundance of leafage, Greekness of perfusion that might be instructed unto the many. For the sake of which their questions are indulged if not always answered. Greek dilemma I have wandered wittingly into -- I am pierced -- the young Angus is the old Balder -- but surely you…?--
No, no, no! Even if the garden be despoiled, bright apples that I… Approvingly. And so to walk these formless paths I shall remake (not a stone will go unnoticed) Already I am plotting against the dilemmas. O brightness of this my angelic rebellion!
Sweet day that you are no brevity could be as nice. Good affirmations. Question the body so as to question the soul. Not every answer is a finality. Scallop of the pilgrimage city that I carry into the hard intractable day. Opening that does not always close.
As aforetime is not necessarily hereafter. The border of the body shifts into the border of the soul -- what border has chaos?
Soul the unformed substance. I have none that is not the body’s delight in this intractable world. Word of the world.
Apples to pluck for sustenance where the tree of knowledge is the tree of exile. Exiled into the world (and after this our exile show unto us…).
Show.
Shall I tell you oh shall I tell you? Yes do.
Tell one, tell all for there is no fortitude in silence that will feed you to the bone and then some. Flowing,
oh flowing as you would want it to be and it always is what you want it to be and then it is some more than that that can’t be named no matter how often you seek to name it.
Shall I tell you, oh shall I tell you or do you already know what there is no need of repeating unless in the telling is a joy that has nothing to do with newness but everything with telling and wordness. Where A is saying to B what he can’t say to C. can’t or won’t, no difference and the world-word no better for it. Telling no telling. That’s the way of it as it winds its way about you on its way to….couldn’t put it any other way because there is no other way to put it. Wouldn’t even want one if there was another one to be had. But there isn’t. immutable. Lovely word in its accuracy. Another wordness to be savoured and saved. For what and for whom is not the question therefore there is no other accurate answer. No other answer will be give because none will be sought for therefore none will be found. Found that a good reply to his question. His question not worth any other answer therefore there is no other answer to be given as I am telling you and have told you up till now. Now. Here in this place and moment, in the immutability of sound and sense as they say if there is any sense to the now that we don’t yet know. What do I know? Will I tel you what I know? Will I tell you what I don’t as if I could. Would like to but can’t. can only tell what I know. Of him and her and she as they found themselves that day on the tram, or that evening on a beach. Lovely threesome. Build on that a new theocracy. I will and I won’t. am already doing so. Will do so again because there is nothing better worth doing if anything other than that is worth doing that is. Let it flow, let it flow. All is water to the sea. See -- I can see it from here. Always could and always will. Meanwhile oh meanwhile the world is going on and I am late.
Shouldn’t be tell you this perhaps yet I will tell you. What A said to B but didn’t say to C who desperately wanted to hear it. A said: -It’s all in the telling
And B replied: -then tell me
-And I will, I will, I will, he replied and when on to tell all the parts and divisions and implications that he knew.
-But that’s not something I don’t already know!
-Oh you may know your version of it but you don’t know mine.
-Same words, same story.
-Never the same words, never the same story.
And it never was no matter what the other one said to him because if it could be told one way then it could be told the other. Which it was and the difference was in the telling as it was always meant to be. which was what he wanted to explain but somehow couldn’t no matter how often he tried. And he tried, oh he was trying even when no one was listening and the last tram had returned to the depot and there was nothing for it but the long walk home. which he started out on but soon abandoned as if it was another story that he couldn’t get right to a listener’s ear. But no one was listening now. Shadows and street lights only and the occasional stray cat to call out to. And the shadows were as large as he was and he was soon taken up in the darkness in a somewhat pleasing manner.
-Your temperament is not what I would call pliable
-I was not aware pliability was counted among the virtues
-It’s a social more than a spiritual necessity
-Then I will add it to the poverty which is mine
-Do I sense the stirring of pride in your voice?
-I see it as a refinement of character
-Ah, so you are a believer
-I have made the observance but no longer do so
-Other rituals perhaps…
-Let us say I believe in a word’s incarnation
-That’s merely a mannerism
-Yet it is affirmed
-In the flesh sir, in the flesh
-Disputable I think
-And in that is your satisfaction?
-No, in that is my dilemma
His seedy words. His doctrines.
Yet if the self not incarnate the word…
What will this day incarnate? Some compatible form? Some paradox only a living faith might resolve? He would say day is night’s grandeur revealed but on what revelation may I lay down my obedience? In the noise of day Homer’s music resides.
Audible day and this my aubade. I will make no broken music. Mine to be the sonnet in stone as in those cursive manuscripts. Hail morning! I greet you thus. Lips to the flute, hand to the hand-drum -- let there be new rhythms. Word incarnate in the bell of a sound. Gull’s cry or child voice.
And I will tell of the trembling. As no other has known it so shall it be. Word upon which and from which..Bell’s treble also. Sea-surf in some soft curving.
As it was in the..
Beginning! Beginning! Ah, but surely this is day’s grandeur also? Antigone’s cry (We are Roman or Greek in our circumstances and choices).
Audibility of my song to child and gull.
Word: a fount, baptisms. By water transformed. Thus to the sea of language I go. Where even as I walk my heels make music (And in the echo dwells the echo of an echo) Refute that! Or embrace it unto your betterment. Sweet gulls of joy sing to me.
And from the mothering surf…That in a word…After echo on the air. Audible.
That unto us be these things of the world. And unto the world be these acts of ours.
The act, the subtle gesture dormant in the unspoken and unmoved. The act: see it as a theatre of the mind. I have adhered, I have performed. Priestly in gestures and modes yet secular to my companions.
Already they gather about me-and I see them gathered. Yes, unto me be these things of the world.
O sires of Sion, o children of the transubstantiation! You also within the compass of my mind. Forefathers of cunning, I am not less than you would have me be. In the flesh sir, in the flesh.
As aforetime?
As aforetime so hereafter.
Can it be other? -- no, it cannot be other so let the usurpers tremble (I see them in their bothersome
imitations). They would ride the gilded carriage but the horse has cantered: clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop: goodbye old fiend of the woe-begotten century even as the clock majestic ticks away remaining time.
That unto us be this and such as yet may befall.
Fall of Adam our mark yet featureless creatures abide. Slow tide of the mothering sea. Old graces and new worlds. So let me contradict myself even to the millionth part of the smallest decimal point: clip-clop, clip-clop.
My subtle gestures as counter-command to the waves. I am young Angus again. See me ride the dolphins of my desire. O sea see me!
A gesture and a subtle word. Chain-linkage of the mind.
My mind. No other to be mine. In the flesh sir, in the flesh. Incarnation and annunciations. Like a figure wandering out of El Greco into a Breugel setting to wander back again.
A reply sir, a reply!
Mythos of an island. Sailors. Fisher-folk. The nets that I have cast against those nets that there be transubstantiation! (forgive my exclamations). Land stories also. Hero with a crow on his shoulder or the dying gaul with his sword beneath him (not under a stone).
Termination of the race. New race begun: tick-tock, tick-tock.
-I suppose you…
Thus begins their sly inquisitions in nineteenth century mode.
-…do not see it as irrefutable.
-Or perhaps you acknowledge but will not admit to it.
-Admit? Must I offer evidence?
-Of innocence or guilt?
-You are placing a terrible burden on him.
-Every admission carries its own weight and consequence.
-Consequence? How did we get from a supposition to a consequence?
-It’s the logic of inevitability.
-Logic won’t solve the matter for him, or for us.
-You have, I think, a religious state of mind.
-Don’t deny it -- we all make illogical leaps.
-True, but from what into what?
-It’s the not knowing where you will land which gives every leap its validity. The history of science proves that.
-But first you must have the meta before you have the physics
-More the stuff of poetry I would think.
-O damn the evasions of poetry. We need facts, solid facts. Fact: I am in their company but am not of their kind.
Fact: the space between us is irrefutable. Fact: I have the physics but seek the meta.
-Facts are conditioned by historical circumstances. Once the world was flat now it is round.
-That was never a fact, it was only a superstition.
-It was more than that -- it was a logical deduction from the available evidence.
-So what are you saying?
-I’m saying we don’t know all that we think we know.
-Socrates!
-His questions were always the right ones -- there is value in not knowing, which he prized.
-Let’s leave the Greeks out of this -- don’t you agree?
-If only I could.
-That’s defeatism, I expected more from you.
-But he’s right. The contours of every discussions has long been marked out by the Greeks. We are their children.
If so who be my parent? Fact: no child is fatherless.
Of what terrible union am I the child, the wilful off-spring? Fact: out of the two issues the one.
Father -- who shall I call father?
Fact: or only in the mothering sea find solace?
-We are back at poetry -- as I expected. We are entering terrible lands.
-Poetry as an ideal, not as a practice?
-Now you are too Greek again.
First the separation, then the joining, then the issue.
-And your example is…?
-None that would bear too much scrutiny.
-Your statements are cancelling each other.
-When negations cross what can the result be other than what I have stated?
-You might make a poem of that.
-He might but I suspect that the practice would not equal the ideal.
-And the result would be…
-That nihilism known as pure thought.
-O save us from such sainthood! We have that damnation in abundance!
In abundance he said. Like an old father unto a congregation. Absurd priests -- why do I walk among them? why should I lend my credence to their suppositions? Superstitions of the tribe yet they have not wandered -- no fire or cloud before them.
Yet at gilded animals do they…And I to be the one to break the stones?
From what stern mountain can I admonish this people? With what fire and cloud may I go before them albeit for forty years?
O people I will admonish!
Out, out, out: declensions into negativity not to my liking yet from language to intimate a conflagration.
Yes, I will burn like a bush but I will not be blackened.
This is the law. Unavoidable. Sweet as a nut or a berry. Another abundance in another season -- so what are the festivals I may attend or is it to be a profane canticle which must cross my lips into the world at large.
Sweet nudity for which there is no precedence nor is one sought in the guise of justification. This is the world. It is not other.
This is the world and I am a singer.
Echoes also of course -- my feet on these stones and my words on the air -- so you there, listen. The first and second abundance hath come upon us yet still at gilded animals do they bow in wilful submission.
Fallen Adam among them for the second negation. Yet I..yet I..not with the Calvinist doctrine of sin of the fathers unto the sons for I have disowned and ask again -- father who is my father?
Silence. Silence.
All is quiet on the air where apart from bells and birds there are neither echoes nor twitterings a mind might take refuge in. then let the nudity of god fall upon me as a seamless garment of my station and condition.
Condition: it is a mild spring day.
Condition: I am homeless and childless.
Condition: I owe no allegiance to any with, perhaps, the exception of these sparrows in the air.
Such nudity is my condition and I revel in my condition. So, who is he, that master workman; that I might be him? Gloss in the margin of a text where the text folds in on itself with a fine weaving -- yes, let that be my guide if a guide there is to be. or failing that a blank page awaiting the forms of my signature.
(O Fortuna it will be thus!) nor lesser brightness be unto me a guidance.
They are not my kind yet I am among them yet they do not see the subversion. I the enemy within. I escaping the massacre. I the flute player atop the desolate gates of an over-thrown city.
Desolation.
The earth is desolate but I will populate it again. Ark of language. Potent verb, bright (and brightening) adjective. And the noun will assume its rightful place and occupation. I giver, I weaver, I woven thus nor otherwise shall be. living in the verb To Be (speak against that my accusers for speak against it you will).
Yet this is my commandment unto you. As it was aforetime so shall it be hereafter.
But this is not world’s end. Merely one road leading into another. Junctions and joining -- yes, but also the separations of the ways. Which path shall I choose when I have already chosen.
does not matter yet destinations do not lie.
Mine the singular way. Mine to be the un-trodden path which I’ll delineate. Make of my world the world as it is. World that will be with or without its amen. No more fitting closure. My footprints for others. Others will, others won’t. (what are we that we should not be other?) yes, question wind and water. Question even the un-answering air.
I question and I answer to my own satisfaction. “Will you…"
“I suppose…"
Away! Fiends of air be-gone! Nor any other lushness lure me to lesser affirmations.
I will celebrate. As it was aforetime so shall it be hereafter. World unto world within a word. Only that which I know can please me (I the most pleased). As if the ancient traditions were made new or that there were no traditions to dull the beauty of my nakedness!
Either way…junctions and joining. Choice of one road opposing the choice of another. A different future in both choices and mine to chose. Left foot or right foot. And must I attire myself accordingly? Hat and cane perhaps. A steady pace or a slow saunter?
Then into what future am I travelling down this road or that? And what life will be unlived because I choose one road rather than another?
Junctions and joining. But also, in the same choice, denials and separations. Thus be it so for it is so.
I choose and have no regrets.
Forward! Forward!
Battle-hymns upon my lips and my cane flashing like a lance!
O wonderful morning. O great day of my desire. Am I less than your expectations and demands of me?
Am I less than any fatherless child who has a right to be in this sunshine?
Forward! Forward!
Choose a path and adhere to it. Break the obstacles in your way. Cast aside the useless traditions like useless cloths. Sing as befits your mood. Stride with confidence into the city because there is no other world and this is it.
(Stride: in motion; motive; motor; movable; mercurial; changeful; unquiet; restless; nomadic; runaway; hie; gang; wend; trail; flutter; wave; flap; walk; trip; tread; tramp; dance; leap; skitter; slide; slither; skate; fly; frisk; filt; flitter; dart; hover; cruse; progress; pass through; wade; tack; manoeuvre.)
Change the clause -- make the past tense the present tense, measure the gravity of light, open the door of a possibility.
Yes I will! Now.
And hereafter. Or as he would say -You are becoming a poet again. When was it otherwise?
And now my shadow before me becomes my shadow behind me. And this door which opens in opens out -- so what should I do, push or pull?
Every moment is the zero moment of a beginning. This is my day and I’ll have no other. Now. Or as he would say -- so, we are back at choice. Never moved from it. Never will. Measure that. Like water the good Greek stepped into and out of.
Hail equals -- how beautiful is my arrogance to me! (forgive my exclamations) Can a shadow be measured? -- if so I will measure it.
And the past is the present in its new attire. I am not other than what I am. Like the clock hands ticking towards a new zero.
Negate the negations -- measure that into the new infinity. Yes, there is no other world and this is it -- nor any other wanted. Will there be singing? -- yes, there will be singing. And the river offering its guidance -- o beauty of water. Am I now Taliesin’s child? And that shadow crossing mine in a new calligraphy.
Already I am ancient and ageless. And the poetry of that which is coupled with the poetry of that which shall be. Shall be. I and no other for no other sees it as I do. Do. Affirm the affirmations. Nor decry the dark for its necessity (of this there will be singing) Now what will you accuse me of ye doubting ones?
It does not matter.
Song along justifies me in my time and time beyond. And unto time. Nor can it otherwise be. For be it will be. The light measured in the scale of a word. Nor my thoughts alien to this day.
This day. Yes, I am a profane believer who would not otherwise be. See me -- I am dancing, hear me -- I am singing.
As it was in the beginning so shall it now be. Thus I undo to remake. Thus. And shall further undo (see me undoing and re-making) This street or that -- what does it matter -- it is my infinity which waits (ah my sweet arrogance how I love thee!) And whatever else awaits shall make itself known.
This street or that -- neither will change my destination for I have already chosen. Shall make itself known and I will make it known. Bending it to my desires. Like a loom-worker -- stitch, counter-stitch and shall populate my pages accordingly. Affirmation and negation which shall be, and is, my affirmation (do you hear me now my doubters?) And that unbending branch I shall take as my symbol. That unto me and mine…
An inheritance. Heirloom for the generations (ah my sweet arrogance how I love thee!) Give myself a new name which will be the ancient name. Lyrical and bountiful (old warriors I will take, and add, from your warrior-strength such strength as I may need) Nor will culpability pass my lips. As I take the measure of these shadows I walk amongst and out of.
-This obsession with identity
-It is the only one worth having
-Spoken like a true egoist
-A condemnation?
-An admonition. There are other questions worth solving than the nature of the self
-Such as
-The collective identity cannot be overlooked
-I find that to be a horrible thought
-As I said, an egoist
-I might take that as a compliment
-Bur surely..this world exists for me as much as it exists for you
-Ah, but is it the same world we see through different eyes?
-The world is what it is, it cannot be other
-But it is other to every one
-I disagree. Facts are not mutable. The world is as the world is. Interpretation is not possible on given notions.
-In that case tell me the colour of black.
-That’s a trick, not an argument
-Or tell me the gravity of light
-Another trick
-Another proposition
-You’re cleaver but that’s not enough to shape a life by -- even with your obsession. Sooner or later you will come up against a fact that can’t be challenged and when you do your whole world will come crashing down about you
-And that would please you?
-Indirectly, yes
-Because?
-Because you would have to face the emptiness of your notions
-Or their acquittal -- perhaps it’s the 'facts’ as you call them which will fall
-Your pride is wilful to the point of being dangerous. Don’t you recognise any authority other than yourself?
-What other authority can there be?
-The collective identity and strength is not to be despised. There is a wisdom in it which can’t be refuted
-I see neither wisdom not strength
-Because you don’t know how to look
-That’s the dogma of a believer
-Whereas you…
-Whereas I am in the becoming of myself and allow myself no other dogma nor creed
-Yes, your pride is wilful. It will be your undoing
-It is the making
-But look at you -- penniless and homeless --is that your vaunted freedom?
-It’s a start
-You have been a long time starting. Everything with you is in the becoming never in the now of achievement
-Time is my ally
-No, time is the enemy waiting to ambush you
-I am armed
-O you’re not the first to say that nor will you be the last for an egoist can never understand the lessons of history
-It has few lessons to teach me and those it has I have exhausted
-Then maybe I’m wrong -- perhaps you are not wilful and arrogant but that you possess the terrible purity of an innocence which I do not understand
-In which case…
-In which case I despair of what will become of you.
-shall I tell you
-do, o do
-but there is so much to tell
-then begin
but I don’t always know what the beginning is
-does it matter? We are water, we are flowing
-I always admired the Greek in you
-it’s a question, a matter of fidelity
-to what?
-to what and to everything
-I still don’t know where to begin
-choose any point, select any junction, pick a face out of a crowd and begin to speculate
-easier said than done
-but speech is not always easy. Complicated thing. Past and present and future tense available to you and you only have to choose
-but I can’t
-but you can
-and must I because I can?
-you must.
Must I? what is 'must’ and what is 'I’ that I should be answerable to them? From what pit do these questions arise with an authority that is difficult to refute. I refute or I accept but the questions remain regardless of my wishes or decisions. I am subject to I.
there is no refutation of the self that is total. Even death can be a choice at a particular junction. There is no other world and this is it.
And not to be unto them what they would have me be.
Nor at their shrines to kneel as if a believer of their arguments.
I am other than they. This cannot be denied. I will not deny it and neither will they though they seek to undo me daily.
I was weaned at a different nipple. I have drunk other milk.
Not yet of paradise but that will come to pass or a total damnation will cover me. Sing of the dark? I will sing of the dark if needs be, but I will sing.
Listen: my anthems are already upon my lips. I might warn but I will not coheres. Listen: my anthems are already ringing.
I will sing of no generation but only of the generation that I am. And I will be among them as the patriarchs were among their peoples.
I the burnishing and I the flame.
I onwards and out. Out. Out. Out.
-As a parting shot, tell me, if you had to choose an ancestor, who would it be: Adam or Antigone?
The present is always on the verge of the past. Time is always on the verge of goodbye but I haven’t said it. Will do of course. Can’t stay here. No room for my soul’s forging.
That’s the nub.
Becoming. Being. All else is secondary. Not worth thinking about. Won’t think about it.
Down this street into the future. What meetings, what conversations await? I will not be guided. No is the equal, and superior, of yes in certain circumstances and pronunciations
A cigarette and a flame’s flare. In the daylight no less.
Must be careful in crossing the road. Traffic. The many lives about me -- how shall they be named? By fire or by cloud? Clouds above me like puffed meringues. Tasty. A good bakery will have them. Time to stop and eat soon -- but with what coins my brethren?
No matter.
Melt in the mouth and are gone. Coins gone. Had so few paper notes to begin with. Had. Not now.
No matter. Something will happen. Something always does even if not the desired. That’s the future. That’s the certainty of the uncertainty.
A saint’s dilemma? Or a fools?
No matter. There is now and for the moment that is all that matters.
Though it might rain. White turn to grey turn to black clouds. Then darkness with no fire before me. Fire within. Best place to have it. The only true guidance. Albeit for forty years I will wander.
No sailor I -- landsman. Breugel’s offspring with a Dantesque touch. But this is not hell nor am I in it. Would be according to his definition. Should be according to another. But this is not hell nor am I in it. Nor paradise for the soul’s delight.
What is my soul’s delight? This here, this now, this unfolding future.
You will die alone was her prophecy. Four coins in her hand placed to be told this. A cheap wisdom I bought. Yet have paid more and bought less.. Often. Too often. A double poverty. Yet not to my soul’s penury. Not that. Though Midas in reverse they call me.
Biblical facts that are not facts and yet are more than that. Names. Sticks and stones to beat a dog with. Will not break me.
Cross the street again. Dart down this lane. Emerge into the flushed silence of a square. Yes I am flushed. Of pocket only not of mind. I don’t mind. My future will replenish me. I the replenished. Now and in what will yet be. the future’s shadow already upon me. The shadow before me circling to become the shadow behind me.
That future has passed.
The particular not the general. That still waits as I stride to meet it. Street after street. No somnambulist I. now in my future’s beginning.
Now by water and weeping trees.
I will not weep. Didn’t when it was required of me won’t do so now. Not mine the tear-drenched eye-lash. Clear-eyed to the world.
Not for a pittance will my soul lie down. Neither by water nor pasture nor bridge.
Bridge I must cross. Uniting what it separates. Another symbol there if symbols be needed. A bakery. No meringues. How fortunate that my poverty is not emphasised by abundance. A small good-bye before the larger goodbye. A promise to the future.
A promise to the self.
-Yes he told me he met you -- last Tuesday it was, outside the post office, and that he saw you later that same day by the main door of the library but he didn’t know if you were going in or coming out as you didn’t appear to have a book in your hands -- if that was their only purpose I said but as usual he didn’t know what I was talking about so I left the matter stand as it stood and was on my way.
Continued
Cheerio!
Secretly I unwind my spool and travel back and forth within the maze. Secretly. Am beast and seeker. The one who knows that the way in is not necessarily the way out. Yet I go deeper in so as not yet to go out. Unwinding as I go a golden thread to defy the works of minotaur.
But brightness now about me. Nor darkness overtake me. Nor silence come upon my mouth. Nor does my hand shake in trembling at the necessities of the day. And if he saw me outside the library -- what of it? His eyes can never know my purpose nor the schemes to which I have set myself. Library: I will write a fine page. I will have no gilded web about me but I will write a fine page.
Now to my steps tempo my thoughts also. Am I already taking leave of familiar sights and sounds while carrying their essence within me? If so it will be so but there will be no silence. Nor gilded pages lure me from my purpose. I will write a fine page.
See him and her but I do not want to see them. Pass on as if un-noticing their gestures and not hearing their callings from the opposite side of the street. Their gesture are not mine to recognise and respond to. Useless words exchanged and the pleasantries gone through like a weekly ritual: How are you today? Fine weather for a stroll. How is the work coming along?
Bah! I will have none of it. Only essentials. That’s what matters. All the rest can flow away from me like useless water to a puddle.
Mud-water. Between the paving stones. Left-over’s from yesterday’s rain. Their words and gestures also. Formalities I have neither time nor inclination for. An embarrassment not to be responded to.
Gull and wave -- sweet weaves of time as might be sung in a song (I will be that singer).
The transubstantiating sea. And a gull’s arabesque-hail mystery of craft and flight. Unto me be these things of the day.
Choir of the day my reply sir, my reply. Alpha, alpha, alpha. Undertones.
Under the tones of bells I pass which tell the time and tell their convictions. Soft seepage of certain words and utterances as if I am required to dress for certain occasions. Hat and cane, a steady walk that does not break into a trot. Gentleman thus. Impoverish guardian of imperishable. Custodian.
Yet I guard only myself and the intentions of the sea. His undertones in his questions which always begin with
“ Tell me…’ and I told him.
The unspoken undertones in her eyes looking directly at me. Sea of glass with white horse waves. Carry me, carry me. It is my impoverishment I guard. Naked pockets. Not a coin for the rattling yet of this I make my proud music. Light on the sea against that darkness I must guard myself against.
-Tell me
I will tell but I will not turn back no more than I will disown.
Dreams my dreams are of the sea not his shadow coming across the floor from the doorway he blocked up.
So what language must I now speak and with what verbs will I form an alliance?
-Tell me
I will tell but the telling will be mine no according to tradition even as I embrace the impoverishment
Hosannas for the new entrance. Laurel not palm. About me in the glittering (I will give new answers to the old numbered questions spoken, and answered, by rote). For mine is the arrogant pride of a maker: so be it so in the world; word, tone and undertone, semblance and shadow (how real now these shadows as I cross them and how insubstantial as I cross out of them and leave them behind me).
Will there be a gathering? Yes there will be a gathering Will there be a reckoning? Yes there will be a reckoning.
I will gather and I will reckon. Soft seepage and hard judgements -- I the castigator! (yet a certain form of love abides in my harsh words which those who listen to the undertone will hear the tones of).
But softly, softly now nor bitterness claim me nor dark light issue from my eyes. Like a tailor I’ll thread my needle with a fine thread to make a rich brocade which some mason at his stone might be able to measure. Measure my steps and they are equal to my needs. No more and no less. A completion in themselves.
Yet if there is Alpha where is Omega?
Greek again, as all my dilemmas are. Unending, unending. Resolution for a time only, not for eternity -- or is time eternity’s undertone? Riddle me that my sweet believers and doubters. Or shall I say the question is purely semantic?
Purely?
Purity of self and implication?
It matters, it matters not, or is the chapel perilous that must be entered. Grail of the word and world. If I am well then all is well (I have asked the question and I have given the answer) so softly, softly, let no black fire issue from my eye nor bitterness fill the emptiness of my purse -- so with what shall I pay the ferryman?
Amen, amen. Vivid on those lips I cannot see. Vivid pronouncement like a question asked of the accused. Ask. Ask and answer. One question leading into another.
Junctions and joinings.
River into river from the bright pebble emerging. Where if not for the lyrical impulse…
Ask and answer again. Question into answer into question again. Like in the old days. Discussions on the rialto and agora. But the cup was handed to him and he drank -- what cup will I drink to its fullness of sweetness or bitterness?
Stance and precondition condition me. I am not other than what I will myself to be.
Meanwhile, on the agora… As if in that gathering something useful might be said and adhered to.
Like the condition of a new preamble. (I will begin, I am beginning) river into sea, sea to the rock’s resistance.
Yes, I like that: resistance. If that is not what I am then what am I? riddle me that out of confusion. But no confusion today.
Clarity of light. Clarity of thought all be they many and varied: I am a swirling eddy, I am a thicket in which a stag is tangled -- see the freeing of the stag. See him who sees himself as an Abraham unto a people but there are no new lands for the old prophet and so pity the prophet with a broken crown.
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Already he is a shadow disappearing behind me, going to where I’ve come from but without the same starting point. Already he is a shade out of Dante’s rounds slipping back into his old condition. Already he is behind me and I will think of him no more. Already he is slipping out of memory like water escaping from a stone only to be lost in the ground. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
Soft light on the froth of the sea. Soft froth of thought and sound. The world is an audible bell. And that gull also -- he of sound and echo and soft swish? Bell and bell-buoy. A music for transcription. Mine will be the transcribing. Soft, softly now. Low light and far light. What sound has light? I have lost, I have gained. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
The stag has cleared the thicket and recovered the sword from under the stone. The stag has cleared the thicket and is now in the clearing. Let the horns blow, let the chase begin, I shall not be trapped. I am thicket and horn and stag. I bid you all goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.