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Joel's Autobiography
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Elegy - by Geoffrey O'Brien |
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Joel O’Brien — 1943–2004
Through thick glass —
protective
window —
I see you struggle in a canyon
where I cannot touch you
— naked —
in headwind —
the figure of a man
seen
from far off —
who
uses force to beat back
against force — in the last room —
where
you may no longer
go
anywhere anymore —
and can still clarify
“This
is a nightmare” —
the spine laid bare
and eyes hollowed out
you are knocked back and scoured
not as by a lover
but by the blind hunger
of matter to devour its own
accidental child —
miracle
that
was locked in rock —
butterfly intelligence
Brother — are these the woods
and rocks we lived among —
revealed
now — that were disguised
as chairs or sofas — where on the journey to the far
side
of the room you went astray
passing
the mirror — expecting
a pool — you seemed to think
you were heading somewhere —
“Shouldn’t we be... going?” — almost
with a wink — conspiratorial
smile as if to say
“Let’s blow this joint” —
and later in child’s voice
“Shouldn’t we be going
home now?” —
toward the end
of
what long afternoon
in
what back yard
Chill of language failing — my story
about our childhood house confused
suddenly
with the movie on TV
and with our being in the room together —
a
collapse of borders
between worlds —
what were separate realms
having become a single time zone
with
no further leeway
to go back or forward
even
as far
as
the top of the stairs —
I had not thought
to
watch time
buckle
and collapse
in the heart of your syntax —
your
sentence
that
kept order always
by continuous plaiting
of
strands — of names —
you
who wove the world —
“but how
did they film this
so that we were in it?” —
with enough time
you
might have invented
an alternate language
to describe the dilemma –
“you
realize this will never
come
back as memory” —
no repeats —
it
happens once
and
disappears into itself —
A note
sounded
and gone —
you were trying
to make language
do what it cannot —
what
is forbidden to it —
bridge the abyss
between us — but we speak
untranslatable dialects
on opposite sides of the border —
occupy different planes
even as they seem to overlap —
so that becoming transparent
you walked through me —
and I through you —
collapse of geography
that
comes before
the
departure from space —
the facets are partial —
they
shear off
in
mid air
I begin to inhabit
an
absence
in
whose midst
you are folding
a white towel — with absolute care
straightening its corners
to make a perfect rectangle —
almost the last contained form
you can establish —
white rectangle laid flat
across
your legs —
you
having become ancient
in bright unvarying sunlight —
merciless
pale orange sun
a
rock wall
that no longer illuminates —
you are the explorer of where cloth begins —
where
cloth reaches to —
of the seams where might be hidden
what?
— you tug on a strand of cloth
as
if all space
were attached to it —
and pull it toward you —
no
up or down
in your new world —
you
pull on the thread
like
a rope you climb
a mountain with —
or
as if the thread
itself
were mountain —
the rip in the fabric
is
part of the fabric —
the
rip is a fold
over what you were uncovering —
hidden center
wrapped
like a stone
in cloth —
slipping
out
through
an unseen trap —
a magician’s trick —
open
the cloth
and
there is nothing there
The world is continuous
in
which these holes
continually
open —
the waterfall
a
tissue of gaps —
that
arches and parts —
cave mouth
huge
in the room —
where
a devouring goes on —
ineluctable folding motion —
that
we sit under
as
under a wave —
submit to a rotation —
wheel
that
turns beyond names
Just in time — judicious
in
placing accents —
an
alarm clock
ringing
in
the empty sky —
on
the other side —
there being nothing
but
what is divided —
severed
by a beat —
a drop of time —
in
the midst —
as
churn or plowblade —
all else
to
fall contrary ways
either side of it —
a broken music
nourished
by interruptions —
an
alarm clock ringing
in the empty house —
where
the air is rarefied
beyond
tune —
stick music
scraping
at the unseen —
notch
music —
chisel music —
memory
is
in the bones
and hangs from nothing —
as
you drum
with
one hand
on bony thigh
in
time to the conga drum
of
“Allen’s Alley”
Even in dream
you continue to play music
as if there were no silence
so deep
you
could not break it
by
seizing on gong
or wooden flute —
not to announce festival
but
to have already begun it —
“mañan’ habrá gran fiesta” —
the
word is fiesta
not funesta —
I see you
not mourning or in sorrow — you walk
from
under trees into light
as
if you made part
of the light —
it
lacks only instruments —
ears
— air
to make concert
out
of nothing
but
the fact of slipping
through the dark grove
in
late afternoon —
if
I wrote this before
(almost the same words
about
the same grove
where
a premonition of twilight
is always just starting
to
infiltrate the splendor)
it
was only to prepare
for writing it again — the way the musicians
tune
up with fragments
of
what they will be playing
when the time comes
to
take time in hand
and
moisten it with breath
and stride all the way into it —
playing
while they walk
past
the boarded-up shopfronts
of a decayed industrial district —
if
they pause
to
permit silence
it is only so they can begin
again
and again
always
for the first time —
The tree is made of smoke —
the
dog is made of smoke —
the
shadow of the leaf
that whips like a rocket
across
the grass
is
essence of smoke —
smoke flower —
Buddha
be praised —
the
ancient ones be praised —
because they are smoke
already
— part
of
the smoke we are becoming —
got there ahead of us —
Lester
Young be praised —
Arsenio
Rodriguez be praised —
and carvers of marks
in
stone walls — polishers
of
black neolithic bowls —
of round smooth depths —
who
made arches to walk under —
who
tuned — who invented fingerings —
made vents for deep song
to
leak into the burning world
where
we are poured out —
shaped
(as
if by ourselves) by what
we
carry in us —
as living smoke
we
let pour out
into
the space under the tree
only what is hidden
can
be revealed —
only
what is obscured
can
the light
shine
on — remote
reflected light
to
etch the ink-black
portrait
of one
who came down
near
the water —
she who in the middle
of everyone else’s
sleep
slipped past
watchfires,
waded
out
in the reeds in the dark
to hear the river move —
finding
inside
the noise
a tune clean enough
to
carry as far
as
the far shore —
shapes half-hidden
are
best shapes —
shadows
most bright
and
homelike
of
what is visible —
the ear
cherishes
darkness
on rock
thought spreads
like moss —
on rock
not
penetrable
by
the reverie it’s host to
inscribe
what
rock thinks —
memorial
tablet
peopled by remnants
of
accidental glimpses —
gods
seen in dreams
who can be
only
if we aren’t,
in
the world
where we never were —
the
people who know the sun
live
as if eclipsed
by brightness,
knowing
nothing
of
what is under them —
locked out
from
the half part
of
the world — the
rumble
from the other side of the wall
might
be a half-drunk
country
singer mumbling
to himself — or monks
summoning
spirit armies —
we
have never
known where we are —
or
saw past the ledge
at whose narrow rim
we place at fixed hours
a totem positioned
to reflect remote daylight —
spinning
in the blind world
our membranes out of ourselves —
shimmering scales,
textured layers of names
to
keep the dark out —
until having become
our own houses
we find stashed in them
as by a mute caretaker
instruments
for navigation
among the glassy surfaces
and sounding boards —
so
that groping among angles
and openings around midnight
we
locate
the
ramp to the sky deck —
the paradise lounge
whose tentlike structures
almost
translucent
sway at the slightest
night breeze — in the history
of dance measures
a string twang
registers for as long as it lasts
what
lasts —
in our home on the rock
amid the gradually
disappearing echo
of the sundown drums
we stretch out
on the unbreachable foundation —
where once at least
must have been a conduit
between domains —
where once at least
rock opened
and
water poured from it —
from another world —
ice
crystal
that
drifted across space
a chapter
from
the book of spangles —
tone
harvest
baled up in sky lofts —
strange
old flip book coiling
in
jungle patterns,
a collectable rarity
found
on the subway —
hymnal
of alternating click anthems —
downtown garden
downtown
garden
downtown
garden –
look how they come
out
of the sky
and
back into the sky —
belltowers —
fruit-trees
—
galactic
underpasses —
systems of aquifers —
maps
of stems —
green
birds
in pink cages
hung
by well-brink —
the
puppet’s prophecy —
or what the owl
hinted from behind mask —
voices
from under bushes —
when still cold —
crunchy underfoot —
and rags of blue smoke —
strips of paper
from
a toy theater
plastered
to rocks —
clown — crone — king — lutenist —
and
the wizard
in
the conical hat —
window pops open
in
middle of air —
borderline
where it never stops
changing
as one beat
answers
another —
animals call out
from
the woods in back
of
the coastal settlements —
errant milkman
who
from his bicycle
spies
on lawns
in brilliant chill —
a
suspended trumpet —
city
is built
in walls of night
interrupted
by kitchen scenes —
where
from the fire escape
the apartment dweller
up
all night
is
seen carrying drinks in
for the dancers in the next room —
the
star that breaks
in
the forehead
dissolves geometry of street-grid
into
thick rainfall —
of
all things most yielding —
wears away stone —
city
is broken apart —
of
the signs that remain
on the stripped highway
you will not read
even
what isn’t written
we dreamed that everything
was
alive — even rocks —
even
the gullies
between star-formations —
the
brisk waves
and
discarded shells
on a stretch of coast
where
we walked
as
if it were part of us —
everything the eye
could
see
was
violent with life —
glistening slime
on
beached boulders —
flat
cloud-banks
pinching the light out
between
sky and shore —
mirror
facets
of sand grains seen
up
close — the mix of speckles —
fragment
of twine
coiled where it rotted
into
a broken pockmarked spiral
where
even what was missing
in the gaps in its arc
heaved
with breath —
ocean inhaling deeply
while sky watched
the
shapes we described
by moving underneath it —
we dreamed we were
walking
on the beach
in late winter —
where the walk stops
at
the edge
of
black seawater
what would it take
to
set the dark
to
permanent music —
to a noise
like
pots and pans
banging
in swing time
7
on tom tom
in
soft night
on
flute
in soft night
on
vibes
in
soft night
the air
compounded
of
overtones —
a ringing
as
of a thousand
tiny
waterfalls
unloosed
at
once
and
pitched each
to its own degree
solitary
in
a lagoon of songs
where answer
answers
answer
—
frog night
on
back porch —
electric
rumble
over the hill —
a
voice
kicks
open
summer heat
like
the noise
of
rusty hinges —
ancient people
first
taught
to
put sounds together
and never died —
it
lives in them
as
much as ever
in quaver of water —
bent
note
dipping
hooklike
to scoop up
woodpaths
—
“where the breaks
between
trees
bring
us moonbeams” —
song coming apart
in
spray
along
the ridge
— Geoffrey L. O'Brien
Courtesy of SaltPublishing.com
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