Friday, March 26, 2010

The Dance of Play


There is no right and wrong, just play.

I pick up my magic scepter, a thin green extension of will and mind.It is the instrument of my child, the toy of the girl.It is long and thin, found in the garden by a girl with strawberry-smelling curls and a laugh like wolves.

I dance within the circle, pointing to each member of the orchestra like a conductor in wool pajamas, though no one sees me and no one responds, I point with a smile, cheering them on with my scepter and hips.

Somehow the music found its way in, and I jump and move, half child, half woman, half creature. Half guest. And when I divide like that, the numbers don’t matter, the calculator hangs by a sorry string on a doorknob and I sing out 5,3,8,3,8,7 Hey! And the numbers dwindle in significance, though their accumulation births the thing before you, a woman with white breasts and wide hips and lips verging on pale.

Now, there is only play. And when I slip, I imitate myself in a frenzy, turning the fall of a foot into a wild move. Play. It becomes part of the dance, the un-scripted move; chaotic, controlled, graceful, disjointed. It was all there, moving in a twisting tornado of movement. And the melody kept pumping my heart, cheering those little sock-covered toes. Jumping over wires, missing the flame of a candle, kissing those eyes that found mine, dancing with my green scepter, the pointer of desire, the cane of a vaudevillian, the green finger to the clouds, the channel towards the unknown.

It came though, like a prince from heaven. From a sky that may be underground, or within, or both. The rules are wide, the rules bend like putty and squishy breasts and plastic nipples squeezed between white fingertips.

There is no right, there is no wrong, but there is play.

There are words, there is movement, and sound. And as I move through them, I join the different points with gold and blue threads, using the attention of a woman and the joy of a child. They melt, forming the carpet for your soft white feet, the landing for a prince, the home of the voyager.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Jungle Monkeys

It is a monkey
a monkey with a veil,
and when I finally manage to grasp
just a little piece of white lace,
I catch a look in the mirror.
There is a gasp,
coming from someplace within.

A wide face, hair covering my cheeks,
black beady eyes stare back, blinking every so often.
There is hair,
coarse brown hair
both above and below the veneer of pink skin

I have seen otherwise
all this time.
Looking through the haze
of human,
and different,
and other.

But in these eyes
I see an animal,
a machine,
eat, sleep, and breed
programming.

There is nothing else.
No desire beyond the obvious,
No emotion
beyond empty gestures
and thin words.

This is me, it took a sleepless night to see.

It took all my life.
It took the allies.
It took a gentle hand to discover what I was

What I have been
What I am
What I will continue to be.

I am not now, what I could be.

Flying,
moving through dark space,
arriving at clusters of exploding stars,
Talking to beings with no mouths and eyes.
And we talk, and they share, and we merge,
Dancing as one fleck of light

Dancers among millions
on the dark stage of the universe.

The body is gone
The concerns of the body
The worries of the monkey

Eat
Sleep scratch
fuck
Clothes
warmth
Food
hunger
Anger
Jealousy
Hatred
Envy
Desire

It is all gone
Discarded with the old skin
that lays like a crumpled laundry bag.
And now I travel
I reach for a hand in the darkness,
Finding light

I am not now, what I could be.

I am still chained to the circus tent.
I perform my tricks
I ride a red bicycle
Circle after circle
Decade after decade
Lifetime after lifetime
I like my dress
with tiny blue polka dots
I like my bed,
My sleep, my endless state

I am a monkey
And I see my reflection
sitting in the park
with a sandwich,
In the sports car
Waiting for a bus
Walking on a sidewalk
millions like me
in a forgotten human jungle,
in a place that lacks vines and trees,
but I can hear the shrieks,
if I look
with just the right eyes.

We are not what we could be.
What we could be
What we could be
What we yearn to be
What we yearn to be

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Cord

The typewriter clicked under his quick-moving fingers. Chik-chik-chik…the pace hardly ever stopped. Light would be streaming in from the window and typed pages would form a stack next to the typewriter. He would lose the sun and then be accompanied by a few of the strongest stars, and the manuscript grew taller and taller. He was unaffected by the hours of man, by the hands of the clock or the tilt of the earth. The sounds of the neighborhood did not disturb him, nor the snoring of his neighbor, Levi, that he could hear through the wall.
He would only break the rhythm of the writing when his body required tending, or when Mrs. Johnson from upstairs would come over to prepare him some lunch. She told him she could not stand to know a man was not eating and wasting away, so she made it her business to prepare him simple meals three times a day. Besides those necessary interruptions and an occasional walk to the living room window, his place was at the desk, before the typewriter and the clean white pages that he would fill with other worlds.
He preferred living in those other places, the realities he created. They were so much more interesting than the city that was just outside his 16th floor window. In his mind, there were no rules, no conventions, no limits as to what could happen. It was total freedom, and he dove into it everyday, as if finally, he was home.
The typewriter clicked.
“…Cintra held onto the helm. She could see the star system fast approaching. It was a cluster of white lights that sparkled brighter than anything she had ever seen. Moving in and out of the clusters were other space craft, smaller than the one she now maneuvered, smaller and more round, like shooting spheres that had the light-willed movement of bubbles. She was not quite sure which direction to turn. Would the smaller ship carrying her crew and supplies follow her into the cluster of light? Perhaps she should circumvent the stars and arc over them…She heard the phone next to her ring. She picked up the receiver, pulling the cord as far as it would go so she could walk towards the wide glass that was the front windshield of the spacecraft. Before waiting for a voice, she said, ‘Let’s go for it Kurt. Let’s see what lives out here.’ ‘OK Captain.’ She walked towards her seat and hung up the phone, resting it gently in its plastic cradle. She got into the chair and gripped the steering device.”
He pushed hard on the key for “period.” He did it more sharply, more exaggerated than the rest of the paragraph. This was getting good. He nodded to himself, enjoying where the story was taking him. He nodded softly, over and over, a small trance coming over him.
It was how he rested. Images of space craft took the place of words. He saw the dark sky of space, imagined what it would be like to approach a thick cluster of stars that seemed to vibrate a thousand times greater than the most populated city. He let himself feel the tension of the space travelers, the anticipation, the curiosity building as they quickly approached the lights.
His body jerked slightly as he heard the rattle of a key in the door. Without even looking up, he could see the round shape of Mrs. Johnson emerging through the doorway, her thick arm pulling the key from the metal hole. Her pudgy pink hand closed the door, locking the deadbolt, she took just a few steps to the small kitchen left of the door, then reached for the apron she left on a single metal hook. He could hear her humming.
He pulled the paper out of the typewriter, tugging gently on it from both corners so as not to bend it. He re-read the paragraph and found it pleasing, though he thought there would be more details he could add later. He liked the world. He read it again, still missing the one thing that would act like a siren to a reader far in the future.
The cord, the phone. In a world of easy space travel, he had inserted an object bound by the world around him. An object he knew, a thing he recognized. His publisher would glaze over it too, both unable to recognize an object from his unconscious daily assumptions.
He walked over to the window, looking out at the constant traffic of a New York street, where cars remained long and bound by the laws of physics. Technology moved so fast, soon engineers would realize that small, round, bubble cars made more sense. He heard the telephone ring and walked to the small wooden end table. He picked up the receiver, trying to untangle the gray cord as he brought the plastic piece to his ear.