Footprints in the sands
I firmly believe that we never hear a song twice. And I don't mean, that it's the first time you hear it that matters most. It's the time that you heard it, really held it, within a circumstance that sets the music for you, fitted like in fine jewelry. That gemstone, that cameo, or picture in the locket, becoming surrounded by auditory gold, or silver if preferred.
Then, with every glance back at the music, we see it as if turning in another light...
yet, somehow, that most significant instance, is there in the tint of the shadows, or highlights, and becomes a near or distant accompaniment... as mood that goes with, in the background.
We seldom sang at home. It turned out that was a great regret, to our adults. Our dad sang us songs sometimes. Our mom once confided, when we were grown and on our own: "I thought for sure having two girls meant there would be constant singing around the house..."
She never sang. We dare not either, except in private, where there were no adults to criticize. (I make a point now of singing loud with my little boy, and my heart cheers and flutters at every attempt of his to follow along with lyrics, to hum a tune, or invent his own songs. I want for him to know that freedom of spirit.)
Criticism was taken very seriously in the household, immediate and extended family, as an art form in itself in the oratory tradition. I understand now why mom held her tongue rather than be scolded and reminded that her tastes were too common.
I'm listening now to Diana Ross and the Supremes and remembering the grimace that passed across faces. No one wants to be shamed of the music that finds resonance within themselves; for reasons, more oft than not, hidden or incoherent, and psychologically complex.
As I'm dwelling on music that moved, emotionally or intellectually, impacting our path in some way, I can't help go back to this one song involuntarily, that on hearing once as a teen, I could not listen to again, but would shut it off, or walk away. I have blocked the title, and the artist, only to say it is a commonly played 80s tune by a rock band with female vocalists, and it must have been, objectively speaking a powerful number, to have that gripping effect on a young person. I had trouble wrapping my mind around the moral implications, the ethics, and where I would place myself into the situations of any one of the characters that would be involved. It was story song, a rock ballad. (I am leaving no clues here, so don't trouble the mind in trying to retrace any leftover grains.)
I won't listen to it even now, yet I commend the impact. That is art, isn't it? and we remember the footprints in the sands of memory long after they have been wind swept and near irrelevant. Things change. They certainly shift. A little bit of sensory input, goes a long way, many a times.
I've never been to a grand concert... It would terrify, I imagine. Once, on impulse I bought tickets to the unlikely proposition that 10,000 Maniacs was to play live at our nearby ski and summer resort and conference center called with southern homeliness Mountain Creek. That was very bold of me, but familiarity built up confidence, and I sometimes make a gamble on odd chances. Tickets, for me and my sister; we never went. The concert was "canceled" a day or two before, and it took months to get a refund. Maybe cynical teenage imagination was at play, but we decided somebody had swindled a quick loan from the community... it was quite hard to believe that our little locale would be visited by any such name brand in music, just too good to be true...
https://youtu.be/c0b7ltFrB34?si=yZZz542f3eufMGef
As a theme, I've been drawn to songs about the passing of time. Maybe it's because the first cassette I ever owned was Cyndi Lauper's 1983 She's So Unusual album, and my favorite track was Time After Time.
https://youtu.be/lx8-95fPjHc?si=uEe9FB3qZCnDqi6P
I remember receiving the cassette soon after starting school, so I would say I was six or seven years old. By that time mom had already run off from our home twice; with us and without us, children. The tune has continued to grow in meaning for me.
Eventually, I did some church choir singing, and to this day those hymnals, memorized, are among the most comforting musical tunes for me. I'm thinking of songs like Here I am Lord; On Eagles Wings; and Amazing Grace, among others.
I'm trying very hard to think of a song or album that I felt initially one way about, and then, on rehearing, changed my mind... and it must have happened, but apparently nothing that strongly felt, as I am not recalling. Maybe I feel less dismissive of Frank Sinatra or Linda Ronstadt or similar voices that I thought, early on, lacked depth... unfair judgements, immature, and I chide myself against these notions, nowadays.
It takes quite a lot of vulnerability to create songs, lyrical or instrumental, of every kind, especially as a cohesive body of work. Yes, there is music that doesn't suit the moment, but it ought not be dismissed altogether... Or deemed as good or bad. I've tried very much to be open to all music and to its ability to nurture our soul along the journey. We are blessed, when we can turn and return to music again, if only reliving it in our hearts.
Poetry
This is how
you inspire me
to death
This is image
and word, a fist
and its dissect
deep
prime cuts
of life
on
the operations table
shouldering
the doctor,
as patient:
...Chairs,
single filed
gray matter, turned on paper,
and the time... It takes us...
we pick up the score
along the byways
blushed with emotion,
and cosmic relief,
extra sensory
reflex
solving viscerally
for some unknown
prismatic Y
crystal stoppered,
in colored perfume vial
called, "Eternal Rest."
(To cover the smell...)
And this is how
you inspire me
to try
once and again
to be righted
from the carnet
by example, or
demonstration
reboot, and a
stepping back
into vacation
because
that is the nature
of the A-l-i-v-e-
it leaves,
and makes space
for imagination
like electricity
in hot wires
needs adept
technicians,
who can pair
safe and kind
to avert
the jolted shock
And like
a magic bean
small and dark
you certainly
don't seem
the part
to keep us up at night
watering
the celestial garden
(hey ...stars don't
grow by themselves,
Mama)
and so we'll be renowned
in our own fabled yards
reclining,
we'll catch
and play
(after all
we are dogs)
the lyric we hear
from inside
is the leash
that keeps us, unmastered
Do I need to go on....?
I'll be at the vault
and you'll be rerunning
the human song
in your heart
somewhere far off
with big wet syllables
of our shared
arrhythmia...
punch by punch
of every
small reunion
that is final
in itself,
when held up...
for inspection
we might've been
in sync at several points
and that's enough
to tune us
in, into the pattern
of the infinite
on either side
of the platform
disbelieving, we'll be here
again someday
(never twice
the same way,
like Lightning McQueen
is a strange conglomeration)
And this is the way
you inspire me
to death
by idea...
I know a little girl
once about this age,
who's given name,
"Ms. Fortune,"
we tacitly acquiesced
as familial indiscretion,
or didn't even
notice,
because
the namesake
in cloy reflection
would own us...
if cited as Mistake.
Still,
we don't chose
optimism,
either...
We opt for
Marquez Realism
of things
retold
to ourselves
by a future us
when they seem
to happen
I mean years later
on recollection
of the aftermath
while measuring
out chicken
liquid
spilt...
when I will shrink
like a hot washed
cashmere sweater
of your favorite
thread baby
bear,
you'll look down
and hold my hand
like something
fragile
that a verb
might break
but doesn't,
and you'll think
in borrowed verse
how things travel
along the spokes
of a unicycle,
person to person
around a pinnacle
of thought
no matter how small
the kernel
this how
you inspire me
farther...
as miracle
neither child
nor forefather
nor sibling
nor other
just a
long pause
inside
dialog
.
.
.
You Took
For every mark on the surface
there are a myriad
of directions that the line didn't take
invisible,
yet indivisible, hanging, a bite...
In the atmosphere, that little bit of static
the cling, and interference, a sizzle
of the disconnect,
to redress (one self)
in threads and ravel...
Light, in effect.
A Final Date in the Journal
clouds came, acknowledged
from the desert, a nod to the sea... shore
combing the hair of our beach... lit
in the wind, seeds like shells
of us, burning the soles...
at our feet, and none
shall ever follow... again
follow the footsteps
like we did... as pages
follow you, like I did
my phantom shadow
going west, holstered
into fatal sunset...
Someone Fixed the Cuckoo Clock
PART 1
We're in for now.
Times change in social details, dressing and appointments updated for the new agenda. Daylight savings has been extended, I mean that as a pun, a knockout averted from the bots up the hall. The bouncer robots haven't picked up on me yet. I'm in. I'm ok.
I don't know how much longer I can continue to fool them. There's something about being a plain white woman that is neutralizing. I remain, under the radar. Normal. Words flop meaning often. Take asylum. Once for the insane, now it keeps-in those that are tested and deemed to be un-touched.
"Janie, meeting at 6 in the gymnasium, right?"
It's Alec. His pitch a tad too high, he's always looking to me, as a lighthouse to the port authority, a safe near insider. There's a slight sweat on his brow, but he quickly wipes it in his shirt sleeve and hides the jog needed to find himself in stride with me from the left, behind. I am average, according to all statistics, height, weight, hair, complexion, dismissible in every aspect, near perfect Norm. Whereas Alec is short, heavyset, and always pushing his glasses up like he's competing with Sisyphus. I suspect he's unidentified preliminary borderline but wants so much to be in that he has managed to escape signaling and bouncing out. Luck, not effort, on his part, is at work. There is a disproportionate amount of monitoring outside, and things do get by.
The parameters of the institution are eating away at him. I can see the strain in the constriction of his suit, with seams about to burst. He wants so hard to fit in. He's trying not to breath too hard and relax his leashed mind over contradictions.
"Of course, thanks for reminding me," I say saving face for him, with my voice set to autopilot confidence, the tone I know is expected, and registered on the Checklist.
My response covers me, and him, guarding a secret edge between us, one which only I fully recognize and can articulate. His stress is such that he is turtled. If he could, I bet he would draw in his head and appendages in self-defense. It would get him bounced out immediately as a Bonk. So, this questioning-affirmation is his self-preservation. His thinking, if I'm wrong on details, we'll both be out, and there will be a life preserve to hang on to, maybe. He doesn't know that I am barely hanging on to Expectations.
He thinks I'm a sure bet. The Norm.
"You're a gem. No wonder you're on Responsibility 5."
He slows to compose himself, knowing that I have to move on, to make the clock. They've run the battery of tests on everyone on the inside. How Alec passed I can't say, but I catch my breath, too, knowing myself enough as I do. I'm always on the secret watch for others, like me. I tested free of any diagnosable abnormality. Not ADHD, not Autistic, not Paranoid Schizophrenic, not Bi-Polar, not Sociopathic, not Psychotic, by any given disturbance monitor. I've succeeded in keeping covert my abnormal memory, phonic and photographic. This is not a place where exceptionalism, in any form, is tolerated. This is an asylum for the purely ordinary population to dwell undisturbed and cohabitate in the hopes of reestablishing numbers of the Average Man.
Responsibility 5 is Roll Call. I earned this task by always being present, punctual, and at the front of the line. A veritable yes ma'am. I leveled the line of the lie detector test, and averaged through all the attempted trials given, like to rats in a lab. Tests for willingness to take tasty bribes, lazy shortcuts, etc., etc. My morbid attention to details has been unrecognized. The faked hypnosis has not been detected, and I have never revealed my uncanny ability to mimic gesture as well as sounds such as human voices, animals, and even electronics and incidental noises of inanimate objects.
Never let them see an introspective look in the eye, or a blankness that might be mistaken as such. Extroverted docility is the Expectation.
"Dr. Zbig," I say extending a hand expediently as I near the doors of the gymnasium. It is considered perfectly normal to herd us in here daily at prescribed times, always a little unpredicted, to keep everyone on their toes. It is a mental health check, not at all physical exercise as the room might suggest.
Robots strap sanitized apparatus to our heads as we sit in assembly seats, and automated checks are performed to identify any irregular brain waves.
Dr. Zbigniew knows my file. Seeing me, he does a visual scan and smiles antiseptically.
"Looking good, Janie. Looking good," he says pleased, and it's understood that he is talking about the order of the Institution.
I give a single silent nod. (Grandfather is on the outside, and as family he's all I've got, though I don't know any more if he's gone, and if so, how. Communication with the unasylumed is not allowed. Took some loop work for him to get me in for testing--Passing a must. Think only about breath, he'd said. It's what I call upon now at every check point.)
"Clipboard is on the platform. I've already turned on the Owl. If anything, state the code word, and it will activate back up automatically."
Zbig waves and strides further down the hall, a little too starched, a little too bland, and I can still see his white teeth flashing with indenturedness of a trusted servant.
I give another professional nod to his back. Cameras are watching.
The roster is a on a tablet, not the old school clipboard that used to be used when things were Backward, in the old Asylum days. It's digital, and in this way the central office can monitor in real time who I check off and precisely when. Order is important, for grouping input, data association. Responsibility 5 demands prompt computation since time stamp matters. I know, it's how I merited the position when Robin became patient No. 8.13B. That's B for billion. The slightest hint of deviation will send you out. Following directions is key. There are only 403 of us in the asylum.
The Owl is not a pet. In fact, no animals are permitted, except for lab work, and outside. Pet affinity is a negative indicator, leaning towards creative thinking like anthropomorphism, diminishing the standing of mankind in its special role and dominion which requires rational unsentimentalism.
The Owl is a stationary electronic unit that sits on the platform and scans activity during assembly, with an internal rotating camera, sending close ups for monitoring to the central office. It zooms on the slightest erratic movement, animated facial expression, or altered electrostatic charge of bodily tension. The reassurance is that they see you, and every flinch.
I look at the freshly washed morning faces advancing, devoid of anticipation, imagination, joy or fear.
I begin to checkmark:
Here.
Here.
Here.
Winding and Unwinding
I've been punctual
when on vacay
then, it's always off, and running
ink and blood... and love
like maybe we'll win this
papered chase that's flooding... in
upon the floor of the Living...
from under the double Doors
that color the room atmospheric
in stereo, with delicate touch...
and remind, in body celestial
that time is internal...
and it is not killing us