tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90613050575641548112024-03-14T04:49:54.723-07:00Gerasene Writer's ConferenceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-90061207455350871602012-04-16T08:43:00.003-07:002012-04-16T09:24:39.032-07:00The Rabbi of Chelm<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMY0HHb7udPMTYNxn_5pteJYYZEVk4ts3rxHEJN4mR2TsMwH4bHlVUC53dZZqCbYu_baAwSRH3Sdz2rWRu0RtIvx015pAakg3cDifedn_S8OCO9tDT9bcNgM5TrHU5YqSCaYwiiSxx6r8/s1600/rabbi+of+chelm+synogogue.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 261px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5732024802008813314" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMY0HHb7udPMTYNxn_5pteJYYZEVk4ts3rxHEJN4mR2TsMwH4bHlVUC53dZZqCbYu_baAwSRH3Sdz2rWRu0RtIvx015pAakg3cDifedn_S8OCO9tDT9bcNgM5TrHU5YqSCaYwiiSxx6r8/s400/rabbi+of+chelm+synogogue.jpg" /></a> <em>The Rabbi of Chelm<br /></em><br />(Adapted from various folktales)<br /><em></em><br /><em>RABBI </em><br /><em>FARMER <br />FARMER’S WIFE </em><br /><em>GRANDMOTHER <br />GRANDFATHER</em><br /><em>SEVEN CHILDREN<br />BABY </em><br /><em>ROOSTER <br />CHICKENS</em><br /><em>HORSE<br />DONKEY </em><br /><em>COW<br />SHEEP </em><br /><em>WORKERS 1, 2 & 3<br />MRS. DISHER </em><br /><em>MRS. FISHER<br />MRS. LISHER <br /><br /></em>Curtain<br /><br /><em>Scene: Stage right there a synagogue in which RABBI made his office and space for worship. In the synagogue is found a desk, chair and lectern, facing two rows of seats. A bespectacled RABBI is seated at desk with a large book, studying contents. Center stage is a house with a long table for eating with bowls and spoons enough for 11 places, a chair for sitting, a fireplace and a bed downstage big enough for FARMER and FARMER’S WIFE. Stage left is the outskirts of town. Here, men are busy digging, carrying rocks, etc. to construct the new synagogue.<br /><br /></em><em></em><em>Enter stage left, FARMER. In house already are FARMER’S WIFE, GRANDMOTHER, GRANDFATHER, SEVEN CHILDREN, and BABY in a CRIB, being carried around house by two of the SEVEN CHILDREN.<br /></em><br /><em>FARMER sits down to eat dinner with family. Various members are yelling, GRANDFATHER snores on through racket, other members laugh, others fight, and baby cries. WIFE attends to baby. GRANDMOTHER chases children. FARMER is visibly perturbed.<br /><br /></em>FARMER: It is too noisy in here! I want quiet!<br /><br /><em>EVERYONE stands in montage for a beat, then continues what they were doing, at TWICE the volume.<br /></em><br /><em>FARMER stands up, visibly discouraged, and walks out the door, stage RIGHT.<br /><br /></em>FARMER: I will visit the Rabbi and see if he can bring peace to this house. The Lord knows I can’t!<br /><br /><em>FARMER walks to synagogue, knocks on door.<br /></em><br />RABBI: Yes? Please enter!<br /><br />FARMER: Rabbi, Rabbi, excuse me for disturbing you; I realize you are busy with the plans for the new synagogue, but I have a question for you.<br /><br />RABBI:<em> (gently)</em> Well, what is it?<br /><br />FARMER: Rabbi, Rabbi, my house is full of people. It is too noisy! Tell me what to do!<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(closing his eyes and stroking his beard in thought).</em> Here is what you do. Bring your rooster and your chickens into your house.<br /><br />FARMER: That is a funny thing to do.<br /><br />RABBI: Do you want to solve your problem or do you want to debate points of comedy? Take it or leave it. I have work to do <em>(gesturing to his desk).</em><br /><br />FARMER: Yes, Rabbi. Of course. The rooster.<br /><br />RABBI: And the chickens.<br /><br />FARMER: And the chickens.<br /><br /><em>FARMER races back to his house, grabs rooster and chickens from back yard, and brings them into the house.<br /></em><br />WIFE: Dear, WHAT are you doing?<br /><br />FARMER: Do not worry, my love. It is for our own good. The Rabbi said as much.<br /><br /><em>FARMER sets rooster and chicken loose in house and sits down to soup. Same ruckus as before, with added noise of rooster crowing and chickens clucking.<br /></em><br />WIFE: Well?<br /><br />FARMER: <em>(Throws down spoon)</em> It’s STILL too noisy in here!<br /><br /><em>Brief montage as before and then noise commences. FARMER rises and saunters back to synagogue. RABBI has taken a seat outside synagogue, whittling wood or some other activity.<br /></em><br />FARMER: Rabbi, Rabbi, I have done what you asked. I put the rooster and the chickens in the house. But the noise – it is worse than ever!<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(Without looking up from his woodworking)</em> Then you must put your horses and your sheep in the house.<br /><br />FARMER:<em> (repeating Rabbi)</em> Horses and sheep in the house.<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(stops abruptly)</em> Take it or leave it.<br /><br />FARMER: <em>(More confused than ever but turning to leave, still facing RABBI)</em> Take it…or….leave….it.<br /><br /><em>FARMER returns to house, fetches horse and sheep and herds them indoors. MOTHER has incredulous look on her face.<br /></em><br />WIFE: Now what? Don’t tell me –<br /><br />FARMER: Yes, the Rabbi said so.<br /><br /><em>FARMER lets horse and sheep loose in house and sits down to warm himself by the fireplace. Same ruckus as before with added noise of horse whinnying and sheep baaing.<br /></em><br />WIFE: <em>(To FARMER over his shoulder)</em> And how is this helping, please explain?<br /><br />FARMER: <em>(Sighs and stands up).</em> It is STILL too noisy!<br /><br /><em>With slow, discouraged steps, FARMER returns to RABBI, who at this point is gardening a plot, hoe in hand, outside the synagogue.<br /></em><br />RABBI: <em>(Now looking up from his row of radishes and feigning surprise)</em> You are back!<br /><br />FARMER: <em>(Ignoring RABBI)</em> Noise! Noise! Noise! I cannot stand it anymore!<br /><br />RABBI: Now, your donkey and your cow.<br /><br />FARMER: What was that again, dear Rabbi? I am going deaf, I think, from the noise. I thought I heard you say, “Donkey and cow.”<br /><br />RABBI:<em> (Looking up from garden)</em> In fact, you did hear me say that. Let me say it again. <em>(More slowly this time) </em>Now put your donkey and your cow in the house.<br /><br /><em>FARMER scratches his head, shrugs and walks back to house with look of resignation.<br /></em><br />FARMER: Well, I can’t be any more crazy than I am already.<br /><br /><em>RABBI hears FARMER talking to himself and laughs silently to himself. FATHER returns home and brings donkey (who fights him the whole way) and cow in house.<br /></em><br />WIFE: Let me guess.<br /><br />FARMER and WIFE: The Rabbi said so.<br /><br /><em>Again, FARMER takes seat by fire. Ruckus as usual, with added sounds of cow and donkey. In utter despair now, Father stands, walks over to his soup, which has grown cold, and then surveys the chaos in the room. He retires to his bed where WIFE is already fast asleep. Ruckus continues (LIGHTS OUT) until morning (LIGHTS ON) and sound of rooster perched on bestead wakes WIFE. FARMER hasn’t slept a wink. FARMER drags himself from bed, takes another look at ruckus, still in a white heat from night before, and drags his feet from house over to synagogue, where the RABBI is poring over plans for new synagogue.<br /></em><br />FARMER: <em>(Yawns, stretches, irritable)</em> Rabbi, Rabbi! My house is like a barn! I cannot stand it!<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(Turns and feigns surprise at FARMER’s appearance)</em> Oh, my good man. Here is what to do. <em>(Looks around to see if anyone else is hearing the great demonstration of wisdom he is about to impart to FARMER).</em> Take all the animals out of the house.<br /><br /><em>FARMER waits a beat – for it to sink in – and runs home and one by one removes the barnyard animals from the house – chickens, rooster, donkey (still fighting), sheep, horse, & cow, almost putting GRANDMOTHER out with them, until he realizes what he’s doing. After returning to the house with GRANDMOTHER, he sits down before the hearth. Same ruckus as before – without animal noises. Manipulate to show it is not quite as noisy as the last scene. GRANDPARENTS dancing; some children playing; others fighting; etc. All activity takes place within arm’s length of FARMER, a contented smile on his face.<br /></em><br />FARMER: <em>(Standing)</em> Let us all take breakfast out in the pasture today.<br /><br /><em>FARMER’s family exits stage left. During the previous scene, WORKER 1, WORKER 2, and WORKER 3 return with shovels, digging foundation for new synagogue, and MRS. DISHER takes up her position lower stage right, just in hearing of WORKERS.<br /></em><br /><em>WORKER 1 suddenly stops digging. Straightens his back with a groan and suddenly strokes his beard in thought.<br /></em><br />WORKER 1: <em>(To no one in particular) </em>What are we going to do with all this earth we’re digging up?<br /><br />WORKER 2 (<em>Suddenly stops digging).</em> I never thought about that. <em>(Turning to WORKER 3). </em>What, indeed, are we going to do with this dirt?<br /><br />WORKER 3: <em>(Now no longer working either, but stroking his beard in thought):</em> Ah! I know. We weill make a pit and into it we’ll put all this earth we’re digging up for our synagogue.<br /><br />WORKER 1: But wait a minute. That doesn’t solve the problem at all. What will we do with the earth from that second pit?<br /><br /><em>WORKERS dumfounded for a moment – then in moment of inspiration WORKER 2 puts a finger up.<br /></em><br />WORKER 2: I’ll tell you what. We dig another pit, twice as big as the first, and into it we’ll shovel all the earth we’re digging now and all the earth from the first pit!<br /><br /><em>WORKER 1 and WORKER 3 congratulate him and return to their digging with WORKER 2.<br /></em><br /><em>MRS. FISHER and MRS. LISHER enter stage left. MRS. DISHER turns to MRS. FISHER and MRS. LISHER as they walk by. After a while, WORKERS exit stage right.<br /></em><br />MRS. DISHER: Well, did you ever hear of such bumble-headed foolery?<br /><br /><em>MRS. LISHER looks at MRS. FISHER and both nod to one another.<br /></em><br />MRS. LISHER: What is it now, Mrs. Disher?<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: Well, I was just about to tell you, Mrs. Lisher. But it seems you’re not interested in what I have to say, so perhaps I’ll tell about the lunacy coming from the mouths of these men instead to Mrs. Fisher.<br /><br />MRS. FISHER: It may come as a surprise to you, Mrs. Disher, that neither Mrs. Lisher, nor myself <em>(gesturing to the rest of the village)</em> nor Mrs. Hisher, Mrs. Bisher, Mrs. Kisher, Mrs. Pisher, Mrs. Gisher nor Mrs. Epstein, have any interest in your latest gossip. So we bid you a good day, Mrs. Disher.<br /><br />(<em>MRS. FISHER AND MRS. LISHER exit stage left.)<br /></em><br />MRS. DISHER <em>(brought to the point of tears)</em> Oh, why is it no one will speak to me anymore?<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(Overhearing Mrs. Disher)</em> Were you talking to me, Mrs. Disher?<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: Oh, Rabbi, Rabbi! Why is it no one wants to hear my gossip anymore?<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(With tape measure out, measuring desk, podium, etc.)</em> Well, perhaps you’ve answered your own question, Mrs. Disher.<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: <em>(Suddenly contrite at realization of RABBI’s words)</em> It’s true then. I’ve heard rumors. But now you stand here and tell me to my face that I am a gossip?<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(Gentle bit firm) </em>Which is more, my good woman, than you’ve done for anyone else here in Chelm.<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: Oh, Rabbi! Rabbi! What shall I do? How can I change my ways?<br /><br />RABBI: Ah, it is not for me to change your ways – but you must want to change them yourself.<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: Oh, I do! I do! What should I do first?<br /><br />RABBI: First, you must buy me a chicken.<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: <em>(Taken up short)</em> How’s that again?<br /><br />RABBI: Go down to the market and buy a chicken. Do it as quickly as possible, and return to the synagogue. On your way, pluck off every single feather from the chicken as you run back. Not a single feather should remain. Do you understand?<br /><br /><em>Nodding, MRS. DISHER runs off at once, exit left, and a few moments later returns in a run, entering exit left, throwing chicken feathers everywhere plucked from a rubber chicken. MRS. DISHER hands bare chicken to RABBI.<br /></em><br />MRS. DISHER: Here you are, Rabbi. Just as you asked.<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(Taking the chicken from MRS. DISHER)</em> Oh, you’re not done yet. Now, you must go back and pick up every single one of the feathers you dropped along the way to the synagogue.<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: <em>(Dumbfounded)</em> But…but….but that’s impossible. The wind must have carried every single feather all the way into the next kibbutz by now. I could never recover every single one of those feathers as you ask.<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(Returning to his measuring the furniture)</em> That’s true. And that’s how it is with gossip. One rumor can fly to many corners, and how could you retrieve it? Better not to speak gossip in the first place, it seems to me…<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: <em>(Burying her face in her hands, sobbing) </em>Oh, Rabbi, what shall I do now?<br /><br />RABBI: Well, I would start by asking for the forgiveness of your neighbors here in Chelm.<br /><br />MRS. DISHER: Yes, Rabbi. I will. Right away. <em>(She turns to leave, but stops.)</em> Well, all except for Mrs. Lisher. You know, of course, what I heard is that she’s…<br /><br />RABBI: <em>(With one hand wagging his finger and with the other holding out a feather, letting it drop). </em>Uh uh uhhhh…. Remember. Feathers. <em>(He lets it drop and they both watch it fall to the ground.)<br /></em><br />MRS. DISHER: Yes, of course, Rabbi. All my neighbors.<br /><br /><em>(As MRS. DISHER exits stage left, WORKER 1, WORKER 2, and WORKER 3, enter stage right, carrying heavy loads on their backs.)<br /></em><br />RABBI: Ah, my good men, these must be the rocks for the mortar?<br /><br />WORKER 1: They are indeed, Rabbi. Where do you want them – over here?<br /><br />RABBI: Oh, my kind sir, did it not occur to you that you could have rolled these rocks, so large and round as they are, rolled them, I say, down the mountain from which you retrieved them. How much simpler it would have been for you!<br /><br />WORKER 1 <em>(scratching his head and then looking at WORKER 2 and WORKER 3, nods):</em> And that, Rabbi, is why you are the Rabbi and we are not! Thank you, Rabbi. By my grandmother’s hat pin! That is a most excellent idea!<br /><br /><em>At signal from WORKER 1, WORKERS turn on their heels, and begin returning in the direction from which they came, rocks still on their shoulders.<br /></em><br />RABBI: <em>(With a look of disbelief, pushing his spectacles up on his forehead)</em> Wait, my good sir. What about the rocks?<br /><br />WORKER 1: Oh, don’t fear. We have them snug. They won’t get away from us – at least not until we get them back to the mountain top to give them the big roll down. <em>(Laughing with other WORKERS)</em> Thanks again, Rabbi – you’re a real lifesaver!<br /><br /><em>(WORKERS exit stage right and RABBI shakes his head. He then begins a search for his eyeglasses which are still perched atop his head – searches podium, desk, behind desk, behind podium, etc.)<br /></em><br />RABBI: Where are my glasses? <em>(Then, straightening up into formal posture as if about to deliver a lecture.)</em> Indeed, where are my glasses. <em>(More formally still)</em> Let us assume they were taken by someone. They were taken either by someone who needs glasses or by someone who doesn’t need glasses. If it was someone who needs glasses, he has glasses; and if it was someone who doesn’t need glasses, then why should he take them?<br /><br /><em>(RABBI looks around room again before returning to formal lecture posture again.)<br /></em><br />Very well. Suppose we assume they were taken by someone who planned to sell them for gain. Either he sells them to one who needs glasses, or to one who doesn’t need glasses. But one who needs glasses has glasses, and one who doesn’t need them, surely doesn’t want to buy them . . . So much for that.<br /><br /><em>(RABBI looks around again, this time, in other places, under the door, under the desk, etc. before again returning to his formal lecture posture.)<br /></em><br />Therefore . . . this is a problem involving one who needs glasses and has glasses, one who either took someone else’s because he lost his own, or who absentmindedly pushed his own up from his nose to his forehead and promptly forgot all about them!<br /><br /><em>(Pause a half a beat.)<br /></em><br />For instance . . . me!<br /><br /><em>(Triumphantly, RABBI sweeps thumb to forehead, signaling the end of his lecture and the recovery of his spectacles in one gesture.)<br /></em><br />Praised be the Lord, I am trained in our ancient manner of reasoning. Otherwise I would never have found them!<br /><br />CurtainUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-57632195071548479532011-11-21T14:05:00.000-08:002011-11-21T14:21:36.335-08:00Fox's Confessor - Chapter Six<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju13x4EuDxUYVp7P-3P3235r4QgR7KCz5bs3rjfQIR4ZhMHP5axovn__90oypyMU8uTqZNAvMQrpgLAMYzHlRXeyl_mzj6E8JsSHi1YMCFtt2ojBNt1BjciRXTmH4yCWIU1zpIFKitSYg/s1600/empty_glasses.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 220px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677577733339178514" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju13x4EuDxUYVp7P-3P3235r4QgR7KCz5bs3rjfQIR4ZhMHP5axovn__90oypyMU8uTqZNAvMQrpgLAMYzHlRXeyl_mzj6E8JsSHi1YMCFtt2ojBNt1BjciRXTmH4yCWIU1zpIFKitSYg/s400/empty_glasses.jpg" /></a>When Father Overbee drank he often thought<br />Of St. Augustine (“To <em>The Burgundy,<br /></em>Thence I came…”) but refused to think what brought<br />Him to such a pass: he knew the company<br />“The Legless Fox” kept was most nights only<br />“Me, myself and rye.” So he thought it strange<br />To have someone other than a barfly<br />Or transient intrude on his solo binge:<br />Parishioner or not, encounters made him cringe.<br /><br />Tonight’s visitor in natty long coat<br />And pin-striped three-piece was holding in hand<br />And close to vest a fancy leather tote:<br />That’s where, thought Father, lawyers keep contained<br />Such secrets convictions that sins defend…<br />The priest avoided making eye contact<br />And turned to his drink as the stranger scanned<br />The room for signs of life. In fact, he attacked<br />His beer: <em>shall I be shit-faced tonight, or just shellacked?<br /><br /></em>Before too long, though, half way through the priest’s<br />Latest coat of liver stain, the stranger spoke –<br />Not to him – to imaginary guests –<br />Or so it seemed. Perhaps the priest mistook<br />The man for his appearance: <em>homeless folk<br />Have taken to wearing upscale suits</em>, he thought.<br />Intrigued, he listened to the stranger talk.<br />A beer later, the stranger began to shout,<br />Then looked at – or through – the priest, and quickly ran out.<br /><br />“There goes the evening’s divertissement…”<br />The cleric said, and, shrugged to silence, sipped<br />His glass and munched at a free assortment<br />Of nuts and snaps at the bar. As he tipped<br />His glass to drain it, someone lightly tapped<br />His arm. A fat fellow sat a stool away<br />And watched the glass the priest held as it dripped<br />Its final drop into his mouth. “Good day,”<br />He said. “I’m Lonnie Cash. Are you enjoying your stay?”<br /><br />“Good day – evening, sir. I’m actually not<br />A regular guess – I came for the cashews<br />And stayed for Wilmaukee’s Best. Look at that…<br />Late fer New Mexico and no excuse.<br />A bishop-forced vacation – can’t refuse.”<br />“Are you a priest by name of Father Andy?”<br />Asked Lonnie barging through the priest’s obtuse<br />Palaver (Although that’s not quite the way<br />That he put it later to Peyton: “He was high!”)<br /><br />“Who needs to know? You can tell Mrs. Conway –“<br />“Are you a priest?” (Although still dressed in his blacks,<br />He had his Roman collar stashed away<br />In his back pocket.) “Whew, this ‘Headless Fox’<br />Sure’s gotten busy tonight. ‘Matter facks,<br />I am – or was – or…whaz on your mind, son?”<br />“We’ve got a guest in Six-sixty-six –<br />He’s very ill, you see – and a Christian –<br />And he’d like to have a priest to do confession.”<br /><br />* * * *<br /><em>Delirium – dying delirium,<br /></em>Thought Lytlewood, once more in the lobby.<br />He pounded on the call-bell like a drum<br />And Peyton Cash appeared almost instantly<br />Behind the desk. <em>Or the insanity<br />Of an old man.</em> “I’d like to take my suite.”<br />“Yes sir, Mr. Lytlewood. Here’s your key.<br />I would suggest you take the stairs tonight<br />As the elevator is cranky – and it might –“<br /><br />“You expect me to take six flights of stairs?”<br />“Of course not, Mr. Lytlewood, go straight<br />On down the hall and there’s elevators<br />To left and right, but take the one on the right.”<br />But Lytlewood shot a severe look at<br />The man. “You damn well know I’ve been before.<br />Who’s taking care of baggage this late<br />At night?” Even Peyton Cash – cool cucumber<br />Extraordinaire – struggled to keep composure.<br /><br />“We’ll…We’ll have them sent up A.S.A.P….”<br />“What kind of place you run–“ Whatever else<br />The aging thug thought he was going to say<br />Was lost in vertigo and closing walls –<br />He gripped the desk to ride out the crippling spells<br />Of nausea, letting fall to the marble floor<br />The dossier from Music. When the chills<br />And shakes subsided, Peyton standing there<br />Beside him, both saw its contents spilled everywhere.<br /><br />* * * * *<br />As Father Overbee replayed the scene,<br />Bizarre and of a piece with how his night<br />Was shaping up, his presbyterian<br />Instincts assumed a sober defense of rite<br />And sacrament: while he agreed, despite<br />His clodded judgment, to see the sick man,<br />He told the thumbless fellow – as he spat<br />Tobacco juice into a brass spittoon –<br />“Sish sishty-sish, huh? Good nummers for confection…”<br /><br />“Well, Padre, <em>spurt</em> it can’t hurt <em>spurt </em>can it?”<br />“I’ll need a hole and stoly oils – a stoles<br />For extreme inaction – what? Bah! Emmit fit<br />To drivel meself and get a couple miles<br />To walk –“ “Oh, don’t sweat <em>spurt</em> the details<br />There Padre – just <em>spurt </em>go and do your thing.<br />The little stuff are just the devil’s<br />Excuse for <em>spurt </em>to make the ol’ purse strings<br />Of pig tails – or is it honey <em>spurt</em> for the bee stings?<br /><br />“Shit, I don’t know – the point is <em>spurt</em>…Well, shit,<br />What was my point?” “The rask of gitting lust<br />In detools?” "Ex – <em>spurt </em>– actly! Did I hit<br />The hammer on the tail?" "– I think I mussed<br />Your name, Mr….?” “Lonnie Cash, your host…<br />I’m owner of these here praymises, too.”<br />And Lonnie, pausing half a second, thrust<br />His hand at Father Overbee and threw<br />A look at his piled empty glasses. “Want to play through?”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-620759432990110152011-11-17T08:33:00.000-08:002011-11-17T08:56:46.223-08:00The Fox's Confessor: Chapter Five<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOxLL5N7zAvXxWZx8ckV3zlUCZ4U_P8kzfluV8l7YG9iEr0vR9zqYIN3_qcsyj33ert2AJOgagH28aN9ulOpEuhjyOxBUZbSPkZwv6qtSMaEnlXJo2Fhg1KrjNpqmhgPOnBH8BsnxIfYw/s1600/bar+pic.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 316px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676006987042048418" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOxLL5N7zAvXxWZx8ckV3zlUCZ4U_P8kzfluV8l7YG9iEr0vR9zqYIN3_qcsyj33ert2AJOgagH28aN9ulOpEuhjyOxBUZbSPkZwv6qtSMaEnlXJo2Fhg1KrjNpqmhgPOnBH8BsnxIfYw/s400/bar+pic.jpg" /></a><em>The Burgundy</em> was Lytlewood’s retreat<br />From larger universes. Renting peace<br />Of mind, he found his refuge bittersweet –<br />At once a cure for the common disease<br />Of life, and sure reminder that when lease<br />And rent come due, the vacancies remain<br />The first concern. In its halcyon days<br />The hotel spilled with bouquets and champagne;<br />Today, it’s real estate prostitutes Mnemosyne –<br /><br />A fact the hotel’s current state drove home<br />As Lonnie drove Lytlewood into view:<br />The faded facades of dismantled Rome<br />Could never have filled Caesar with more rue –<br />Its garish art-deco and neon threw<br />Enough electricity to trace its dark<br />Abandoned silhouette. As evening grew<br />It spread its stain against the sky in stark<br />Majestic hints of heydays and high water mark.<br /><br />With tears of practice, Lonnie got the hang<br />Of driving without thumbs. – But Lytlewood<br />Soon realized he wasn’t worth a good damn<br />For carrying bags – <em>This bed is mine I made...</em><br />He was left with baggage at the colonnade<br />That announced <em>The Burgundy’s</em> grand entrance.<br />As Lonnie went to park in back, he stood<br />And saw the hotel’s old ways – a sentence<br />Scrawled above the arch to welcome with faux-pretence:<br /><br /><em>Check Your Cares At Door, Ye Who Enter Here!<br /></em>With a short strained sigh tucked under his breath<br />Against nostalgia, he opened the door<br />And stepped inside. In crossing underneath<br />The jamb, he thought he heard the hotel breathe,<br />Exhaling years and years of quiet years…<br />The lobby’s marble floor echoed with<br />His falling steps – <em>like mourning – without tears<br /></em>He thought – <em>or echoing for years and years.</em> And years…<br /><br />A furtive movement caught his eye: someone<br />Retreated into the office behind<br />The desk – as if to avoid detection.<br />But Lytlewood was rather disinclined<br />To follow up. Instead he looked to find<br />A concierge or bellhop. Then the bar<br />Recalled him to its modest doors; they dinned<br />The clank and hum of business, familiar<br />Enough to guide him back to find his old north star.<br /><br />He was too weak with his sickness to think<br />To want his old proclivities: a box<br />Of choice cigars beneath his arm; a drink<br />In hand to start the night…<em>Scotch – hold the rocks!<br /></em>The Burgundy’s bar – called “The Legless Fox” –<br />Had naturally attracted Lytlewood –<br />Though few guessed his big shoes would leave the tracks<br />Of little Reynard behind...<em>And once, I could…<br /></em>He weakly pushed the swinging doors and stepped inside.<br /><br />There were only three others in the room:<br />A bartender toweling a whisky glass<br />Behind the bar, another pushing broom,<br />His back to Biggy, and – seeming out of place –<br />A single patron crouching comatose,<br />Nursing drinks at the bar’s far end, his mood<br />As black as his attire. And then a voice<br />Yanked at Biggy with its unlikelihood.<br /><em>It’s good to see you again, Mr. Lytlewood.<br /></em><br />As Lytlewood knew that the gangster’s life<br />Was full of strange and bloody things, and one<br />Was just as soon accustomed to mooncalf<br />Grotesques, stupid lore and superstition<br />Of underworld and overlord, as to gun-<br />Downs and garottes, the sign and sacrament<br />Of thuggery itself: still, the phenomenon<br />Appearing now before his eyes was different –<br /><em>Virgil Strong</em> – not quite spirit, not quite corpulent.<br /><br />It was Lytlewood, after all, who first<br />Appealed to Music’s Machiavellian<br />Propensities, suggesting, worse to worst,<br />Divine authority cows even villains –<br />“A taste of blood will only whet the thirst,”<br />He said to Music, “but feed the will on fear<br />And even vice and crime are all but forced<br />To pay the gods respect.” He helped, therefore,<br />Convert dishonest souls to Music’s strident care.<br /><br /><em>Oh, sir,</em> the ghost continued, <em>why surprised? –<br />You act as if the boys had hacked your tongue<br />Instead of mine. But you must have realized<br />We’d be waiting here – with spring in step and song<br />In heart – and ready to bring you along<br />With us</em>. But Lytlewood simply stared<br />Down the bar, long and cool. <em>Don’t get us wrong,<br />Mr. Lytlewood – no expense was spared –<br />If you’re to die, we’re here to make sure you’re prepared.<br /></em><br />It’s Music’s little pastime, Lytlewood<br />Suspected – testing him around the edges,<br />To see if age and pleasure had destroyed<br />His hardness, mollified his ancient grudges<br />Against the world. If Lytlewood budges,<br />So Music speculates, then who else might<br />Betray me? Sham sureties, bogus pledges –<br />Surely these more than bullets took the fight<br />Out of Music? Still, there’s something here that’s not quite…<br /><br />“Say, Virgil, you keep referring to ‘we’<br />And ‘us’ – but I see only us in the place,”<br />The gangster thought to say – with levity<br />To show he’d play it out. <em>Don’t remember us,<br />Good man? – Remember Eddie the Puss?<br />That’s Eddie Pusarchik right over there<br />At Table Eight. Recall how you hopped him<br />Up on smack and made him rape his mother?<br />I think he whacked his father, too – for good measure.<br /></em><br /><em>Then standing over there by the jukebox –<br />That’s Tony Romula. No? You had him kill<br />His brother over phony rotten stocks<br />In city real estate. Talk about shill<br />And shell games: A regular Cain and Abel,<br />Those two. If Jimmy hadn’t played both ends<br />Against the middle, skimming from the till<br />On top of all…I always said, you bends<br />The rules enough and nothing in it recommends.<br /></em><br /><em>And Hector “Horsey” Harriman is here –<br />The stable trainer for Mr. Music’s<br />Arabians? If I’ve the story clear,<br />The bookie – Parrish Bowes, was it? – tried to fix<br />A race in which Achilles’ Heel, Music’s<br />Prize thoroughbred, was running. Hector slipped<br />It’s feed a mickey; Bowes slipped him greenbacks;<br />And didn’t Music have you have Hector strapped<br />And dragged behind Achilles ‘til his spine was snapped?<br /></em><br /><em>Oh, he’s there by the cigarette machine<br />With Bowes now…What became of Bowes again?<br />That’s right. Once you got Hector to come clean –<br />Before his last ride – you “found” Parrish in<br />Bed, committing fornication<br />With Mr. Music’s mistress. What a knack<br />You had for fabricating a fiction.<br />Didn’t you show him counterfeit Kodaks?<br />Is that what makes a fellow swallow Clorox and Ajax?<br /></em><br />As Virgil Strong continued his catalog<br />Of Lytlewood’s auld lang syne alumni,<br />Biggy’s gaze began to drift like fog<br />From face to ghostly face to – suddenly<br />He sensed almost simultaneously<br />Two curious facts: the barkeeps were gone<br />And, he noticed, during Virgil’s litany<br />The barfly in the corner tying one on<br />Was following this one-sided conversation.<br /><br /><em>…Again involving Mr. Music’s mistress –<br />What was her name? Oh, hell!</em> (Sorry, Sir!)<br /><em>But that’s it! Hell – hell – Helen Crosby! Yes!<br />I’m sure of it.</em> Strong paused.<em> It makes me sore,<br />I must confess</em> (It’s just a harmless figure<br />Of speech, Sir, but apologies, of course!)<br /><em>As I was noting, it’s just like a whore<br />To fail to keep appointments. This will force<br />The Master’s hand – and you know how he hates remorse.<br /></em><br />“What do you know about Helen Crosby!”<br />Interrupted Lytlewood. “And who the hell<br /><em>Are</em> you! I’m dying, as you correctly<br />Surmised – but look, the joke was going swell<br />Until you mentioned… Helen.” His voice fell.<br />“Please tell me. What the hell is this about!”<br /><em>Exactly so, dear Mr. Lytlewood. Hell.<br />And we have just the place for down and out<br />Fatalities like yourself. Let me explain it<br /><br />By taking all your questions one by one –<br />No, better yet, let this answer for all:<br />This cocktail party (which cannot begin<br />In fact until Ms. Crosby’s arrival)<br />Is in your honor. For being faithful<br />To the Master, we’d propose a fitting toast –<br />Except the whore prevents it – so until<br />She shows, the Master has but one request:<br />It would be best to ignore that nosey goddamned priest.</em>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-3440470443616551772011-11-10T14:00:00.000-08:002011-11-10T14:35:14.239-08:00The Fox's Confessor: Chapter Four<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6amrxq86WRo3GMRkerNgGTY2_FMYzleXBbWX319uDPgQGjLsSEyDBC8iz83kw7646gHTuFCRTxiA9INiy589lz2bS7ZZJR0b_oBlnvAmwwffznvXwjH0Zroyq4ahbxqxNV1Pk46JABM/s1600/train+at+night+2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673496894376889026" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-6amrxq86WRo3GMRkerNgGTY2_FMYzleXBbWX319uDPgQGjLsSEyDBC8iz83kw7646gHTuFCRTxiA9INiy589lz2bS7ZZJR0b_oBlnvAmwwffznvXwjH0Zroyq4ahbxqxNV1Pk46JABM/s400/train+at+night+2.jpg" /></a>Lost in sorrow’s thickets, the cleric missed<br />The coming thunder, steel gnawing down<br />On steel, the grind that crushed and pushed and pressed.<br />And Lytlewood, abject with abstraction,<br />Ignored the nearing lights of the station.<br />In lonely vigil, only Lonnie heard<br />The train approach the town – its combustion<br />Now sweeping like fate’s engine forward toward<br />The platform, a cargo of revelations on board.<br /><br />The gravity and steel strained to a stop<br />Before the platform. Nervous clustered knots<br />Of those awaiting departure took a grip<br />Of bags and baggage, memories and regret –<br />And those awaiting arrival of debt<br />Assumed and endured now scattered to see<br />Before being seen, hoping to forget<br />The argument, the tiff, the row, or free<br />One's conscience from some latest infidelity.<br /><br />Amid the crowded station’s fervid come<br />And go, the thick-chested man rose and reached<br />For baggage overhead. His head went numb<br />And slumped over – until darkness encroached<br />Upon his sight and gravity unstitched<br />His dozing mind in momentary dread.<br />But catching himself, he stood again, latched<br />One hand to bag and one upon his head.<br />His feet felt for the platform with the weight of lead.<br /><br />Through his faintness Lytlewood thought he saw<br />An obese figure make its way from shadows –<br />Waving to him, the man lacked thumbs, his jaw<br />Hung like a dog’s. In clean accounting rows<br />The memories started adding up and rose<br />To meet him – that same fat body hog-tied<br />With phone cord; that same jaw in twisted throes,<br />And thumbs jumping from his hands as the blade<br />Performed precisely: <em>action owed and suffering paid.<br /></em><br />The moment Lonnie saw old Lytlewood<br />He knew that something about him was wrong.<br />He seemed an apparition as he stood<br />As if about to faint. “It’s been too long,<br />Mr. Lytlewood!” His words seemed to hang<br />Too long before Lytlewood made reply:<br />“You…what? – why you?” “I’m here to help bring<br />Your baggage and things to The Burgundy.”<br />“Lonnie Cash – yes, that’s your name? – I’ve come here to die.”<br /><br />* * * * * *<br />“I shit you not, Peyton, it’s what he said,<br />On God’s honor,” Lonnie explained back at<br />The hotel. “Also, he said he’d be dead<br />In hell, he said, before the night was out.”<br />But Peyton half-listened and, half in doubt,<br />Regarded Lonnie’s news as if received<br />Without the bona fides of proper bullshit.<br />“I think, dear brother, you falsely perceived<br />(Big words always got to Lonnie) and thus believed.”<br /><br />“Well, all’s I know is he don’t look so good;<br />He got these shakes – and driving here I saw<br />These dizzy spells possess him. Lytlewood<br />Ain’t Lytlewood is all’s I’m saying now –<br />He even told me, ‘Take it nice and slow<br />Through downtown’ – which added a whole half-hour<br />Because we drove by this old whorehouse so<br />He could, I don’t know… something to remember,<br />He said, holding hard the while to some kind of folder.”<br /><br />When Lonnie finished Peyton began to hum<br />And think and hum and…. Lonnie blurted, “What!”<br />The office light was shedding from its dome<br />Unsettled shadows on Peyton’s balding nut.<br />He leaned into the cone. “Well look, here’s what<br />I say we do: if Music’s golden goose<br />Is getting ready to kick the bucket –<br />We need some way to find out what that goose<br />Is going to do and whether it’s meant for us.”<br /><br />“Remember that Music demands his men<br />Have to be registered Catholics to play?”<br />Continued Peyton. “He held confession<br />A good way to keep his men honest and fey<br />For blood." “Fey?” “Shut up, Lonnie, and listen –<br />So Music kept on his payroll a real,<br />Honest-to-God priest who heard all the sin<br />And nonsense of Music’s men. Then he’d squeal<br />Afterwards to Music. The trick would never fail.”<br /><br />“What trick?” “Oh, Lonnie, clam it, for Christ’s sakes!<br />The trick was to confess and keep close tabs<br />Ensuring no one came with higher stakes<br />To Music’s table. Nothing up for grabs –<br />You see? You put a fear of God in rubes<br />And they won’t play you for one, or abuse<br />Your confidence. So we find a priest that gabs;<br />We make it so he don't know it, set him loose<br />On old Lytlewood – and if he doesn’t refuse<br /><br />He’ll have to be thinking Music's being thorough –<br />And maybe he’s dying for sure – well, will<br />He refuse a priest? One way or not, we’ll know<br />If Mr. Biggy Lytlewood is ill<br />To death.” “And where’ll I find a priest that will<br />Want to?” Peyton smiled wide. “Well, as I see….<br />That rummy from St. Placid’s fits the bill –<br />And it so happens that he’s currently<br />Buying up the bar. He goes by Father Andy.”Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-63369645607459912752011-11-07T07:57:00.000-08:002011-11-07T08:24:05.960-08:00The Fox's Confessor: Chapter Three<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyp7FOdzum_r_rD3_D4XjJwxxTIC1i6mrAzrgK8JygSwbvl-_aAHCaRFMU1TS_k7xtYirzUSfDcs9w1tZ1gKeti3cTbfCjt7c-BS6A28l6Ji6C0N9-qaKHtcliaIYH69kdTJ-4ByRGWFE/s1600/john+colet.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 306px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672290435689230738" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyp7FOdzum_r_rD3_D4XjJwxxTIC1i6mrAzrgK8JygSwbvl-_aAHCaRFMU1TS_k7xtYirzUSfDcs9w1tZ1gKeti3cTbfCjt7c-BS6A28l6Ji6C0N9-qaKHtcliaIYH69kdTJ-4ByRGWFE/s400/john+colet.jpg" /></a>“Holy shit. That’s what we are, my dear friends<br />In Christ” – Father Andrew Overbee sat back<br />From pen and desk. Holy Shit? <em>That depends<br />On more distinctions than thy rhetoric<br />Hath dreamed,</em> he thought, <em>No, no. Better to stick<br />To boilerplate, Andrew, and besides, it sounds<br />All too Protestant…</em> He knew his homiletic<br />Style already put him well out of bounds<br />With Bishop Linseed and his diocesan hounds.<br /><br />So Father Overbee killed his sermon<br />For Sunday<em> in utero,</em> crossing out<br />Its only sentence. <em>Best goddamned line on<br />Things in a while. But wasn’t meant to be,</em><br />He thought as he cast his gaze at<br />A page torn from <em>Time</em> he’d tacked to his wall –<br />The famous Holbein sketch of Dean John Colet –<br />The softened eyes affixed, half-skeptical,<br />As if gauging the grill of a confessional.<br /><br />Instead of starting over, Father Andrew<br />Blew flatulent ruminations from his lips.<br />He rolled his eyes, paused, and suddenly threw<br />Down his pen. He looked at his fingertips<br />And joined them – then let the steeple collapse.<br />Leaping up, he took, in three strident bounds,<br />The distance from his chair to his relapse:<br />The beer can’s hatching crack – <em>this best of sounds!<br /></em>Thought Father Andrew – provided motive and grounds<br /><br />For his recovering recovery<br />From alcoholism. He downed the can<br />In three hungry gulps, then belched: "Oh-verr-bee-<br />You-lush"" He knew that his next confession<br />Would include a Budweiser commission<br />And half a case of Milwaukee’s Best<br />Beforehand, to muster up enough spin<br />To twirl around the usual manifest<br />Of sins – to save, of course, his mortal best for last.<br /><br />So Father Overbee began to move<br />From room to room, wandering the rectory<br />In search of ideas to rescue and love,<br />To mollycoddle in discovery,<br />And raise the blade of reality<br />(As Abraham would unbloodied Isaac)<br />Above his intellect: Thursday's homily<br />Of fear and trembling – mental disconnect –<br />And fear and loathing –<em>Deny!</em> – usually to redact<br /><br />On Sunday morning: In his years (the last<br />Eleven at his current assignment –<br />The moribund St. Placid’s) as a priest<br />For God’s Rabble, Father Overbee spent<br />His time interring old ground for talent<br />He may or may not have buried alive.<br />The Long Ago of youthful resentment<br />Had softened into middle-aged reprieve<br />Confirmed with liquor – all the better to believe.<br /><br />It was a bargain he made with his flock:<br />The parishioners keep a friendly distance<br />And, playing the equidistant cleric,<br />He guarantees some kind of real presence<br />By keeping faith in words, an allegiance<br />That split infinitives into sermons<br />And baptized syntax with sly inference.<br /><em>Yet even as God’s shadow determines<br />The form,</em> he thought, <em>matter’s meaning dims the world with sins.<br /></em><br />The solipsism was never his style<br />But he had separated himself from<br />The world, pursuing faith in partial exile.<br />His library consoled – but played it dumb<br />When critical interrogations came<br />And knocked on his door. His caged parakeet,<br />Jeremiah, waited, perched in the front room.<br />Preparing Father, this shrill paraclete<br />Enthralling souls that came in off the street. <em>Twit tweet!<br /></em><br /><em>Twit tweet!</em> The song sung now pulled him up short –<br />For day had long since concluded its terms.<br /><em>Who should want counsel now?!</em> With a brusque snort<br />He reluctantly dropped everything: the forms<br />And manners of life, mysterious charms<br />Of social survival; due sacrifice<br />To quotidian gods; liturgical norms<br />For ordinary life – which all suffice<br />To say his fellow man became his daily cross.<br /><br />The knock foretold fulfilled the prophecy<br />Of Jeremiah’s song – announcing each guest<br />A ghost of grief for Father Overbee.<br />Half-heartedly hiding his mild disgust<br />He met Mrs. Conway, parish liturgist<br />And secretary. Halting her entrance,<br />He quickly stepped out on the porch and made fast<br />The door behind him, stealing a quick glance<br />At something she was holding in her vein-blue hands.<br /><br />“A good evening to you, Father Andy,”<br />She said. And her sour-tart smirk said in turn,<br /><em>I piss you off when I call you that, don’t I?<br /></em>“And to you,” he replied. “And your concern?”<br />“Oh, well, I just wanted to come and return<br />This bit of mail I’d taken home by…chance.”<br />As he took it he noticed it was torn.<br />“I think it’s something of some importance,”<br />She added as he saw the seal, “– from His Excellence.”<br /><br />He waited for Mrs. Conway to leave<br />Before attending to the envelope.<br />Prepared for all, he was not so naïve<br />To think its contents held any good hope<br />To come: it was, after all, the Bishop.<br />Upon a careful read, he went inside,<br />Retrieved a beer and came back to the stoop.<br />The Six O’Clock – its whistle opened wide –<br />Resounded in the distance. He sat down and cried.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-49835399038803044242011-11-04T08:28:00.000-07:002011-11-04T12:26:47.785-07:00The Fox's Confessor - Chapter Two<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9hvx-o6SkZnRR_sAD30D8p9dlP941ibMd1iYNYH6DbqfNeCWEAwAEaZlmfowReRii8g7AEqJZadzZ2m0m-Ucx6g3DAwJ_SQt61PZS7xqFG1Ax3k7mK7-l_rPCRbP2NyFeBU0ibUE3sw/s1600/rooftop+dawn+3.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671166071750471378" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm9hvx-o6SkZnRR_sAD30D8p9dlP941ibMd1iYNYH6DbqfNeCWEAwAEaZlmfowReRii8g7AEqJZadzZ2m0m-Ucx6g3DAwJ_SQt61PZS7xqFG1Ax3k7mK7-l_rPCRbP2NyFeBU0ibUE3sw/s400/rooftop+dawn+3.jpg" /></a> “Holy shit…” Biggy groaned, his eyes shut tight,<br />His mind in momentary suspension<br />Before resuming gravity’s upward float –<br />For he was dreaming of resurrection<br />And drowning, day and night, a rising sun,<br />And light and light…His hooded lids snapped wide<br />To see the first golden tendrils of dawn<br />Unfold across the rooftops. From his bed<br />He tried to consider which kingdoms to divide.<br /><br />But something was wrong. Had he but believed,<br />Body and soul, in the body and soul,<br />And not the body only, he might have lived<br />To see his life in more than terms of will.<br />But it came to pass that the world was ill-<br />Conceived this morning. Lytlewood awoke<br />And found the world the way he left it – still<br />One fact, but now divorced, as if it broke<br />From his will, amputated in a single stroke.<br /><br />He raised his skull from his pillow, a head<br />Burnished in laurels of foxfire crimson<br />And balding in corruption, noble, staid<br />As Caesar’s bust. But the latter season<br />Of his pate belied the high green of June<br />That flourished, trunk and limb, beneath his clothes.<br />Still, as he swung his feet from bed linen<br />To floor, with shaking nausea bile rose<br />To meet his false youth with age, his vain works with days<br /><br />Long passed. “Today I die,” said Lytlewood<br />To his burnt reflection in the smoked glass<br />Surmounting his nightstand. Half out of bed<br />He hunched and stretched his hand where a small mess<br />Of sleeping pills had spilled. The half-darkness<br />Half-hindered his search for the telephone.<br />His hands concieved receiver and mouthpiece<br />Plucked from the cradle. Clenched at like a bone,<br />He put it to his ear and, not waiting for a tone,<br /><br />He dialed. Waited. And spoke like one<br />Who learned to talk to himself, one marooned<br />With his own voice for more than a million<br />Seasons. “Yes. I want you to go and find<br />Two airplane tickets to Miami and<br />The cleanest whore in town. I need to go<br />Away awhile… What? I see. A demand.<br />Not a request. Well. Music would know.”<br />He hung up and woke up: <em>Where Music sends, I go.<br /></em><br />Biggy Lytlewood was not one to call<br />Rapacious, but he knew how to “acquire.”<br />The Money – not some, not even most – but all<br />Was his task as underworld stockbroker:<br />Attracting attention among the higher<br />Dominions, thrones and powers, Reynard Lytlewood –<br />His name before his name became bigger –<br />Determined his own course, for bad or good,<br />Relieved a man of his gold as any stone of blood.<br /><br />He took a comet’s path in his career<br />Among the other orbiting bodies<br />And watched from his own insulated sphere<br />The rise and fall, the wax and wane, surcease<br />And excess, this universe of chaos.<br />To his game surprise, he survived, and thrived<br />To see that murder, bribes, and rank abuse<br />Of power, sex and money, had moved<br />His orbit into circles more and more depraved.<br /><br />Of these, none had more perfect compass than<br />The machinations of Frankie Music –<br />His was a total system: he the sun<br />Around which revolved Lytlewood’s logic<br />Of tally sheets and body-counts. In quick<br />Succession Lytlewood rose through the ranks<br />Of Music’s syndicate. His bailiwick<br />Was making Music the Baron of Banks<br />And himself, touched as Midas, horrid as the Sphinx.<br /><br />It was the face of that deceitful god<br />Of waste and nothing, that blood-lusty beast<br />Of riddle and mirage, which now with stolid<br />Expression stared at itself, holding fast<br />Its gaze upon the bathroom mirror, cast<br />Out deep (and thus in deep) to find the cause<br />Of sickness. Impassive as a clenched fist<br />He knuckled up the passing pain, his face<br />Unmoved, its golden whiskers creasing time’s increase.<br /><br />When pain subsided, it left Lytlewood<br />In weary contemplation: what to do<br />Now that mortality had come and stood<br />Beside him? Say farewell? Miami grew<br />Insignificant – and whores the more so.<br />He doused his face and neck from the basin<br />Of shaving water. Suddenly he knew<br />Where he would go – a place half way between<br />Where we would be going and where he had been….<br /><br />“You’re all set, Mr. Lytlewood. Your train<br />Arrives in town a little after six –<br />About sundown. At the station a man<br />From the hotel’s due to pick you up and fix<br />You up in penthouse suite Six-sixty Six,<br />As you requested.” Meyer, his chauffer –<br />Efficient and discreet, handed tickets<br />To Biggy, sitting in back. Over his shoulder,<br />Meyer spoke the way he drove – with purpose. “This folder<br /><br />“As well, is from Mr. Music.” He passed<br />It back. But Lytlewood already knew<br />What the file read: <em>Assignment </em>– his last.<br />So what did it matter which stone he drew<br />The blood from this time? He guessed his would flow<br />Soon enough…. But we leave to meditate<br />On his yesterday and his tomorrow<br />One whose will is lost to a present state –<br />To meet another lost in time’s eternal debate.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/candygirling/783984422/">Photosource</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-55853273533882787722011-11-03T07:39:00.000-07:002011-11-03T08:37:58.620-07:00The Fox's Confessor - Chapter One<em>It is told, then, that Musciatto Franzesi, being from a very rich and considerable merchant in France become a knight... </em><br /><em>-Boccaccio, The Decameron,</em> First Tale, First Day<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKEtYKVdONoH-zUv2cMWrmCrLOjzpzCR4nyH265sE4lyFr8K8kztEqqLejSlxM0BYv5kdk3VIdg-MRfPopbV_obYWTKv0oiNz0sC-rfCVWB9SxsrTFu3ol8bhqHtVMPeeWDCUdt8eBDE/s1600/brick+hotel+5.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 336px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670792456830239138" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKEtYKVdONoH-zUv2cMWrmCrLOjzpzCR4nyH265sE4lyFr8K8kztEqqLejSlxM0BYv5kdk3VIdg-MRfPopbV_obYWTKv0oiNz0sC-rfCVWB9SxsrTFu3ol8bhqHtVMPeeWDCUdt8eBDE/s400/brick+hotel+5.jpg" /></a>“Holy shit! Lytlewood’s coming to town!”<br />Lonnie Cash’s huff-puffing bulk almost<br />Reached the room and his brother Peyton’s frown<br />Before his fat squeal filled up and crossed<br />The office doorway. His brother was lost<br />In thought, his exquisitely thin fingers<br />Drumming desktop for some sullen sunk cost<br />The way a hunted animal lingers<br />With haunting hungers in shadow’s hidden dangers.<br /><br />“Yeah, Lonnie, he’s coming alright – I heard<br />About it this morning. One of Frankie<br />Music’s men had rung in an early bird<br />Reservation,” Peyton said, his lanky<br />Frame rising slowly, painfully, frankly,<br />To greet his brother with the same cool regard<br />Lonnie’s perpetual anxiety<br />Always – the way Peyton saw things – incurred.<br />He watched as the word reservation registered<br /><br />Within the sallow jowls and sag-heaping jaw<br />Lonnie would bounce and jounce with confidence<br />Like pistons as he worked a plug of chew<br />Embalmed in Juicy-Fruit. His countenance<br />Made counterfeits of intelligence,<br />Dismaying his friends, surprising his foes,<br />And disgusting, with thick-headed offence,<br />His brother – so it was that Peyton was<br />Fond of slapping Lonnie’s fat face with good bad news.<br /><br />“Reservation?” Lonnie repeated. “Here?<br />“At The Burgundy?” “Where else?” Peyton said,<br />And pretended more quietly, “My fear<br />Is that our Mr. Biggy Lytlewood<br />Wants someone’s due – Music never yet did<br />Send Biggy but the business required<br />A heavy hand’s caress, some smarts – and blood.”<br />The piston in Lonne’s jaw devoured<br />The news fiercely – then froze his face as he inquired:<br /><br />“But why…The Burgundy?” A seven-story<br />Red-brick affair, old as sin, the inn was built<br />By hands long-lost in graft’s deep pockets; hard<br />And fast and ramshackle to a fault –<br />It stood in comic pride, almost at a tilt.<br />Each room dirty with money’s satin sheets<br />And ghosting dirty looks from shades of guilt<br />Down in the crawling business of the streets<br />Prefigured shapes of darker days and lamp-lit nights.<br /><br />By the blood-red of its own furnaced brick,<br />It was then rechristened – and not too long<br />After Peyton Cash had made specific<br />Arrangements to get its gain for a song:<br />The Singerman Arms, owned by Virgil Strong,<br />Became relinquished compensation for<br />Arrears to Frankie Music’s sturm und drang.<br />(Some say Strong’s coffered corpse still minds the store,<br />Inspiring the Cash brothers to filthier lucre.)<br /><br />The brothers held court in the dingy nook<br />Behind the registration desk, itself<br />Bare but for a leather-bound ledger book<br />Spilling pages from a cracked spine, each leaf<br />Holding sacred secret history – no shelf<br />Of Shakespeare could story such confessions.<br />Biggy Lytlewood’s own tale had its life<br />Reserved in The Burgundy’s discrete lessons<br />Of quick columnar writ and dead letter questions.<br /><br />“Lytlewood will be on the evening train,”<br />Said Peyton as he rolled a cigarette<br />With barely a pinch of weed stuck between<br />His fingers. “So I’d just as soon as bet<br />A pin as wage his train is coming late.”<br />In one motion he lit and took a drag,<br />Exhaling, “so… be… early.” And he let<br />The words – a heavy caution – hang like fog<br />In smoke between them. With no hope for epilogue<br /><br />The falling silence bore up each second<br />The office clock was chipping off like ice.<br />“Sweet Jesus! Peyton – I hadn’t reckoned<br />We’d see Biggy’s ugly fox of a face<br />So soon after…after…” And he held his<br />Hands up – four digits apiece. Each lacked a thumb.<br />He’d submitted them, a small sacrifice<br />To Music’s men for dues to something dumb<br />Of Peyton’s doing: unpaid interest on a sum<br /><br />Of loans to keep the Cashes’ solvent grasp<br />On Burgundy’s lease. “You’re going to hold<br />That on me ‘til death comes for my last gasp,<br />And no doubt after,” said Peyton. His cold<br />Sneer of fraternal hate only retailed<br />The wholesale hurt his brother tried to fling<br />At him with a wit he rarely revealed:<br />“You know, Peyton, there’s not a goddam thing<br />A man less than an ape can hope to be holding<br /><br />At day’s end.” Sunlight, oily and urban,<br />Had seeped down through the city’s upper spheres<br />To bleed the hotel’s dirty blinds and span<br />Their gridlines across Lonnie’s face. Faint tears<br />Angered his grey eyes to black, and shudders<br />Of past pain held him a moment beyond<br />The surety of hatred the brothers<br />Made in compact, contracting like hot wind<br />From furnace lungs that waits for the tongue to expand.<br /><br />But let’s now leave in uneasy conference<br />The brothers – unable to speak or know<br />Their own minds in confident alliance –<br />And further shape what will come tomorrow<br />By glancing back at yesterday’s afterglow:<br />See, already dawn ignites the daily lamp<br />A final time, should time alone allow,<br />For Mr. Biggy Lytlewood - his limp<br />And sleeping form begins to stir to life’s contretemps …Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-90269731834094022011-08-26T12:31:00.000-07:002011-08-26T12:37:27.098-07:00Epithalamium: Twenty-fourth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGv3NwMM4CztZ19C1lXzIbyHL9BHhCSVRqKz2yMoy17GWnUiyE6SuZEF-s-ZDHbluGZn61NBZXVOCv1uBzQdUvTcb9BKW4Uh15q-PYV4cYkYfen2WxEQh77KcaR6h1vJd7umkg8T1ktI/s1600/the+muse+returns+3.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 315px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645249718906580050" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGv3NwMM4CztZ19C1lXzIbyHL9BHhCSVRqKz2yMoy17GWnUiyE6SuZEF-s-ZDHbluGZn61NBZXVOCv1uBzQdUvTcb9BKW4Uh15q-PYV4cYkYfen2WxEQh77KcaR6h1vJd7umkg8T1ktI/s400/the+muse+returns+3.jpg" /></a>Oh, muse, did you call back to say you’re well?
<br />My singing ends, I know, much too self-conscious -
<br />Invoking music’s mirrors with selfish spells.
<br />My friends, I run the risk of Narcissus,
<br />But agitate his placid pool –
<br />And pray this paltry poem's shallow puddles
<br />Reflects the truth you’ve tapped with love in deeper wells.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-61645537216449490462011-08-17T13:38:00.000-07:002011-08-17T13:50:35.292-07:00Epithalamium: Twenty-third Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSoOznZhbfg_TufAmS2vAVmK0mzLac5fodSyqRGHETlanHFt9Ukq63dU-DbPvthQIfaS0spf6TZl-8_WVOITfPfTrFhQamWe50hvopBNBt4ksa87zFToEDT2iV-fAn7jWYeoi73mv5KmA/s1600/tabernacle+2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 274px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5641929717041456578" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSoOznZhbfg_TufAmS2vAVmK0mzLac5fodSyqRGHETlanHFt9Ukq63dU-DbPvthQIfaS0spf6TZl-8_WVOITfPfTrFhQamWe50hvopBNBt4ksa87zFToEDT2iV-fAn7jWYeoi73mv5KmA/s400/tabernacle+2.jpg" /></a>Wisconsin is middle earth to a child;
<br />Its intercessory night shines with light
<br />Once day is put away – a treasury filled
<br />With gold that keeps the promise of its weight
<br />Long after the sun’s tabernacle door
<br />Has closed, and long before
<br />Night’s temple curtain falls, expanding time
<br />And multiplying stars in dark divide
<br />Allowing God’s reprieve – a prayer – to climb
<br />The planes and angles of contemplation
<br />As each constellation
<br />Is held by beauty’s will. Let it be done:
<br />As two souls join in revolution, conferred
<br />In tight orbit around their nuptial word,
<br />They give their starry multitude but one
<br />Fixed house of heaven, one configuration
<br />Incandescent as love – the mystical rose
<br />Nature cannot see but knows to be the key of grace.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-80501098583999321322011-08-10T14:13:00.000-07:002011-08-10T14:15:12.755-07:00Epithalamium: Twenty-second Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYu5wR_-6QDnjIYrg7w9XcIml7LHy_dccr35qHoSzPol8KUeCPXXZ802kua1Pw8hzaLGVMUfqllQyGARoH8ujx_HultcWOG5_2uafq0RdNKTMFFdofb01FoujiTFA8CLNLx9Wm-U6exG8/s1600/cain+and+abel+3.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 264px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 366px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5639338827019964098" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYu5wR_-6QDnjIYrg7w9XcIml7LHy_dccr35qHoSzPol8KUeCPXXZ802kua1Pw8hzaLGVMUfqllQyGARoH8ujx_HultcWOG5_2uafq0RdNKTMFFdofb01FoujiTFA8CLNLx9Wm-U6exG8/s400/cain+and+abel+3.jpg" /></a>Well, look at the time. If we die alone
<br />It’s justice that we should. The century
<br />That passed has gone as deep and clear to bone,
<br />And tells us to stifle, hush and bury
<br />Our little homicides of heart and soul
<br />Despite the yawning hole
<br />That cannot be argued away. The child
<br />Is deaf to sloganeering vitriol,
<br />Knowing only life and love, both defiled
<br />By minds divorced from heaven, wedding hell
<br />To queered political
<br />Predilections Cain possessed to murder
<br />His brother’s duty, giving birth to rights
<br />Without responsibility. Love waits,
<br />Though, patient for assent from the mother
<br />To receive mankind’s universal face
<br />Fathered in time and space.
<br />We do not die alone and we know this –
<br />For death by nature cannot turn the key of grace.
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-25927366112572039352011-08-05T09:36:00.000-07:002011-08-05T11:12:17.890-07:00Epithalamium: Twenty-first Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjwhYQd0rcpd3Ruu8cuuR0SzC-5PHSNmu9vNWUQm44WvlQrT62hxyV68vz3nrW8dmrKreI_2_c_AUn_wTdCwxqQLwDf1Mz02yUFVHmlN6KAjNxXPLGb64HU81iTM3JkG7GaFVwXQbsAjg/s1600/evening+star.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 296px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637436316834735890" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjwhYQd0rcpd3Ruu8cuuR0SzC-5PHSNmu9vNWUQm44WvlQrT62hxyV68vz3nrW8dmrKreI_2_c_AUn_wTdCwxqQLwDf1Mz02yUFVHmlN6KAjNxXPLGb64HU81iTM3JkG7GaFVwXQbsAjg/s400/evening+star.jpg" /></a>The beauty of night is merely darkness<br />For those who never bother with the stars<br />Beyond the first – Lucifer <em>nèe </em>Venus,<br />A distant sun of indistinct desires<br />That serves as dusk’s out-riding fugitive.<br />Its light is meant to give<br />Some dim indication of sullen gloom.<br />But rising moon and fulgent stars contrive<br />To arbitrate the glory bride and groom<br />Will bless with seed and womb.<br />The moon resets her jewel within night’s crown;<br />Ascending, silver-throned, a queen who grants<br />These newest lovers light’s discrete romance,<br />And grave regard commingles with light renown,<br />Reflecting pools of joy with deeper joy.<br />The moon is love’s envoy<br />And magnifies the mysteries of darkness –<br />Which nature cannot solve without the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-15690653464850996082011-08-02T07:54:00.001-07:002011-08-02T08:17:02.333-07:00Epithalamium: Twentieth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBcok5lmZUxyHS0BffCvbs0yHQRwZwhPnVWxyoiZ17I8KOnsdnhAzDEaVRiHRYvEoRUg58IsnAP4ma-9DyxPhiL8Whff-yvL95ViLIrn1o4YKEq-b_LVYdLzwueyoxNNxJHzT7N9q1O20/s1600/candles+in+hall+2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 328px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636272342048011938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBcok5lmZUxyHS0BffCvbs0yHQRwZwhPnVWxyoiZ17I8KOnsdnhAzDEaVRiHRYvEoRUg58IsnAP4ma-9DyxPhiL8Whff-yvL95ViLIrn1o4YKEq-b_LVYdLzwueyoxNNxJHzT7N9q1O20/s400/candles+in+hall+2.jpg" /></a>Peeper frogs intone a choired serenade,<br />A final refrain to hush the bonfires,<br />Last guests lingering in toadstool promenade,<br />Until each echo expires and retires<br />In search of rest with the imitation dead<br />Who take the night to bed.<br />The bride and groom, though, rise to their heaven,<br />Awake, alone, and led<br />Along candled corridors to a shrine<br />Of their making, where private hymns rehearse<br />Entwining wreath and thyrse,<br />And vows that made a debt are paid with pleasure.<br />So rain will fall to rescue wasted lands<br />From drought, and fuel the seedling’s green demands -<br />The swelling promise, a loving partner<br />In God’s creation, gift of soil and root,<br />From sprout to rigid shoot.<br />Imprisoned outer darkness knows but this –<br />Its nature can't be free without the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-51873657911025884902011-07-21T09:55:00.002-07:002011-07-21T09:57:57.757-07:00Epithalamium: Nineteenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYO__OFJn9FmTTDu8lYpmv4I-8xPogNkYnZzSrHK3CAyoUZP6DR_SJLzfAk_fb3PMFnJAVWoPj6Xm01yFYxANClqWDOf-b9Ohi8jyMSa3-_5QoVND3nWemBCfXcn0u46FcXF8u-SOUDE/s1600/nightfuall.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 286px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5631850466523235186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwYO__OFJn9FmTTDu8lYpmv4I-8xPogNkYnZzSrHK3CAyoUZP6DR_SJLzfAk_fb3PMFnJAVWoPj6Xm01yFYxANClqWDOf-b9Ohi8jyMSa3-_5QoVND3nWemBCfXcn0u46FcXF8u-SOUDE/s400/nightfuall.jpg" /></a>At night yesterday’s nearer than tomorrow –<br />Perhaps because the sundown sadness of grief<br />Bristles chill against the skin, a sorrow<br />You own up to the way a summer leaf<br />Will blush and betray its autumn destiny<br />(The fall is sanctity<br />Writ large). The fading colors argue sleep…<br />And stars will blink their maps of unity<br />To brave the cries and whispers that would keep<br />Awake with unwarranted vigilance<br />The doubts that had long since<br />Been put to bed. This dark margin is slight<br />But draws out from hearts the poison of distance<br />And cradles moments that make the difference<br />Between passing hours and constant moonlight.<br />The moon wears her light like a wedding gown<br />And slowly dresses down<br />From sky to earth – and to what darkness is<br />Denied by its nature without the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-22217755485616719752011-07-19T10:20:00.001-07:002011-07-19T10:26:06.845-07:00Epithalamium: Eighteenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUnjSGAV6zjENVpRNrhEIzbhg4l-OfR4ryJp0XkmohGmRgnSVdNba3NdxgZ2ngI_KvVvvJ_We3ndzXyo1jfCzrW9sF4fIkCNBBgsmrO0KGwVNte6hAgo4ZRakQQu4Ye31gZ1_zeWVwnuY/s1600/desert+pic.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 267px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5631114932433709538" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUnjSGAV6zjENVpRNrhEIzbhg4l-OfR4ryJp0XkmohGmRgnSVdNba3NdxgZ2ngI_KvVvvJ_We3ndzXyo1jfCzrW9sF4fIkCNBBgsmrO0KGwVNte6hAgo4ZRakQQu4Ye31gZ1_zeWVwnuY/s400/desert+pic.jpg" /></a>All day, the wit of wine and laughing friends<br />Were joy’s company on the sun’s journey.<br />But as these light things have their own ends,<br />Allow yourselves the means of intimacy –<br />A whisky bottle, cigarettes, a kiss<br />And roads to reminisce,<br />The country rides and city boulevards<br />Where public courtship serves love’s interstice.<br />Again, art assaults what modesty guards…<br />Original touches sing a sweet refrain –<br />On parched hearts, a soft rain;<br />The simple gesture casts a cooling shadow,<br />The kind that’s welcomed in desert places.<br />Such expressions appear as oases -<br />Amid empty eternities, they flow<br />With fertile faith and overspill with mirth<br />Because on all the earth<br />No other night unlocks the stars like this.<br />Indeed, the world’s dark nature finds no key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-34255089784409284522011-07-18T10:11:00.000-07:002011-07-18T10:27:40.217-07:00Epithalamium: Seventeenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeslxoBSrAMW2zclo546GasXwMGJRUJFyuaxZ_TKd2bh8ErUBbbk39EAh9mk6REbtAqbfn74MKez96O4gV0wrGv8i6XmduwLax_cON79h-vhLm3gHNzYxxC_ZgCRmapwyFoXciMBmvIU/s1600/janus+coin.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 226px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 223px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5630741411031426914" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAeslxoBSrAMW2zclo546GasXwMGJRUJFyuaxZ_TKd2bh8ErUBbbk39EAh9mk6REbtAqbfn74MKez96O4gV0wrGv8i6XmduwLax_cON79h-vhLm3gHNzYxxC_ZgCRmapwyFoXciMBmvIU/s400/janus+coin.jpg" /></a>How brief the golden moment’s occasion<br />Before its passage into iron age…<br />The dew has put the pearl on day’s horizon.<br />Minting hill and field in rarity’s coinage,<br />Day pays its dues to night, its tax to peace,<br />Its rent to stars set loose<br />Within a pastured sky. A sad note more<br />Of merry tunes and good talk slips the crease<br />Of dooryard darkness, and fades out before<br />Spying evening creeps through western windows.<br />The descending dusk slows<br />Events and points up violets and nightshades –<br />A solitary vase arranged just so<br />Beside the bed where bride and groom go<br />To pay the mutual debt of maidenhead’s<br />Incorporation. Perfect honor rules<br />Their contract, more than jewels<br />And gold, though the tawdry world can't know this,<br />Its nature all out of tune with the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-69413584044533971782011-07-01T06:31:00.001-07:002011-07-01T06:33:14.139-07:00Epithalamium: Sixteenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDd0Q-K0eU_cfOUoeBNzqI-3lV5uwdl1J6RD3VSL2xTQru5LSLQDIbpZJgRf0k3Y_UCWqfn8MVexK1-9K35N-xhjo3C90a25CMGxMbOcAHGOnUE3i-BfPQa10CW3B1Fou2tvzWrRhf5U/s1600/wisconsin+cows+at+sunset.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5624376132086478034" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGDd0Q-K0eU_cfOUoeBNzqI-3lV5uwdl1J6RD3VSL2xTQru5LSLQDIbpZJgRf0k3Y_UCWqfn8MVexK1-9K35N-xhjo3C90a25CMGxMbOcAHGOnUE3i-BfPQa10CW3B1Fou2tvzWrRhf5U/s400/wisconsin+cows+at+sunset.jpg" /></a>The pastured cattle stomp for stanchions; sheep<br />At hilly intervals are clouds in green<br />Euphoria; both endure the tired creep<br />Of shadows that thread the remnant sunshine.<br />The moments mount a shadow’s blade of grass<br />And leave a bent sadness<br />Beneath every hoof print. The steps away<br />From night begin their count. The drowsy guests drink<br />As they have all day. The near heavens thank<br />Their host, this perfect day,<br />With early starlight from one that loves to make<br />Her presence known as harbinger of night.<br />The moon and Milky Way corral their light<br />In every window. Farmer’s hoe and rake<br />Can take their rest at last. The harvests wait<br />For plow to cultivate<br />Tomorrow’s fruit – what will come just to this –<br />That nature’s fertile soil turns by the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-85177851479525008312011-06-28T10:39:00.000-07:002011-06-28T11:42:09.314-07:00Epithalamium: Fifteenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5Gu5opsk5NVrXtIU5Yb3utpIA_WyN_kq_ZQLogq5EenjF8NPT8Dmd-tEhykW8rcZLKQRxcEru4QNj5AuxW_qmqfP5yi5nFUHzNp33x-F1VfEy-l7C6x37df9S3r-caD47BejRuXwexM/s1600/Compass-rose-image.gif"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 399px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5623342757537635442" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr5Gu5opsk5NVrXtIU5Yb3utpIA_WyN_kq_ZQLogq5EenjF8NPT8Dmd-tEhykW8rcZLKQRxcEru4QNj5AuxW_qmqfP5yi5nFUHzNp33x-F1VfEy-l7C6x37df9S3r-caD47BejRuXwexM/s400/Compass-rose-image.gif" /></a>At day's decline, we're all Pelagians; <br /><div>We wind our clocks too tight. Supposing loss<br />Of creature, evening’s shade, we look across<br />The stark Manichean meridians<br />And hemispheres that helve the truth in two –<br />Our maps and minutes grow<br />As long as compass roses will. The feast’s<br />Time-honored guest, the bishop of Hippo,<br />Retraces autumn’s landscape, charting east’s<br />Determined west, the one that bridges sun<br />And sky. If there’s a sudden end to summer,<br />The season has its own patron father,<br />The sainted sinner whose confession won<br />The hour and still carries the day for brides:<br />No dark nor sea divides<br />The flesh – for love’s new land is found with this –<br />Nature’s compass – calibrated by the key of grace. </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-53628755577620500022011-06-27T12:58:00.000-07:002011-06-27T13:10:34.512-07:00Epithalamium: Fourteenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqdcg-0DO_-9l7Zlx9vEmfXv0L_hJ-O6laTr2hST9eRUVwKj9ndifsFOx2v_yDRgEuf5RTG1wnXq_NZeTPjheZGQ56JPE7n_6_FJnQykTjzy-1fKYTgdvciv15jRt_vyas9Xeb9KT3_Q/s1600/door+4.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622994435726054178" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUqdcg-0DO_-9l7Zlx9vEmfXv0L_hJ-O6laTr2hST9eRUVwKj9ndifsFOx2v_yDRgEuf5RTG1wnXq_NZeTPjheZGQ56JPE7n_6_FJnQykTjzy-1fKYTgdvciv15jRt_vyas9Xeb9KT3_Q/s400/door+4.jpg" /></a>This day unseals the door to a hidden path<br />That brings you to a garden’s grafted branch,<br />Adopted vines that ripen fruit by oath<br />And, pouring pure from heart and vessel, quench<br />The thirst: the day is given memory<br />To speak with antiquity –<br />Like Greeks, we break fast with feast, splash drink with song,<br />And dance with laughter, leavening moiety<br />Of minutes into countless moments, feeding<br />Hilarity’s mind with frothy melody.<br />The crust of levity<br />Sops the soup of charm and saucy wit. The meat<br />Is celebration’s common cause: a dance<br />With the bride (the groom, accosted by aunts<br />And cornered by cousins, never gets to eat).<br />Like novice Bacchae, boys patrol, picking up<br />Neglected glass and cup<br />And down each, loathe to waste what comes to this –<br />That nature drinks its sunset song in the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-48803707992734595132011-06-24T07:38:00.000-07:002011-06-24T08:10:12.948-07:00Epithalamium: Thirteenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaaB3iQEsAM3d-TvBM1SAhrlES7dYwxy8oAAt1QNICrLiSJihYgk4IyIbt7FUbzdhRQxUj-sceid67SFDpqFwHGquOB_TXWnCd5ssN7ZXlDn09_C_x55fx-oZ4CRmyYj8jktn5kQPgyAc/s1600/saints.bmp"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 269px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621796306371685858" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaaB3iQEsAM3d-TvBM1SAhrlES7dYwxy8oAAt1QNICrLiSJihYgk4IyIbt7FUbzdhRQxUj-sceid67SFDpqFwHGquOB_TXWnCd5ssN7ZXlDn09_C_x55fx-oZ4CRmyYj8jktn5kQPgyAc/s400/saints.bmp" /></a>The twelfth bell chimes with the first “Oremus”<br />To signify that holy silence stays<br />The same for Isaac as for Lazarus –<br />And rattles in the rib-cage, in Adam’s case,<br />With eye to eye proposing heart to heart<br />To make complete the part<br />In her, in him, that would not die alone<br />If it could be helped. So lads might court<br />A princess, less to claim her mundane throne<br />And more to seat and crown her bridled hand<br />In eternity’s band<br />Of gold - and chronicles of flesh and kings<br />Might be condemned to realms of “Name & Date,”<br />But love’s alliance ratifies the state<br />By gratifying God’s own fiat of things –<br />The solemn quotidian of haunted saints<br />Who, watching, whisper hints<br />Which lover and beloved see as this –<br />That nature’s chamber opens with the key of grace….Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-39420570671198411902011-06-22T07:05:00.000-07:002011-06-22T07:52:37.519-07:00Epithalamium: Twelfth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsj-yY0trbKjdmW6IqQbk8L1KOawY8AQq-ig-1uzzZqosGU2RRGhUSNggnMuyljlVEwWESB6igkb_Nw4Gi0RnW-FP_4pTMbIQb40UvoFg13XrSXeiA-B9k1zsONJmnSjGh6qYzuei5qRo/s1600/temple+gates.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 340px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5621045426946423794" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsj-yY0trbKjdmW6IqQbk8L1KOawY8AQq-ig-1uzzZqosGU2RRGhUSNggnMuyljlVEwWESB6igkb_Nw4Gi0RnW-FP_4pTMbIQb40UvoFg13XrSXeiA-B9k1zsONJmnSjGh6qYzuei5qRo/s400/temple+gates.jpg" /></a>Philosophy unlocks the temple gates<br />That poetry paints in paneled pictures.<br />So theology ushers in with rites<br />The unity of alien natures:<br />Let nave and vestry breathe an air refined<br />By doctrine first defined<br />Upon the windy shores of Galilee;<br />Let shadows disappear, become confined<br />Within the noon’s well practiced liturgy.<br />Here, light is known again! Let God provide<br />Moriah’s mountainside<br />Another savage grace, a covenant<br />Of changed names once more promising offspring -<br />A summary of sand and stars accounting<br />The dividends in mystery’s own quotient.<br />Then close the gates and toll the steeple bell<br />To tell to all in hell<br />That the bond prevails today because of this –<br />Nature’s heart is locked in love by the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-48942274655405510692011-06-21T07:07:00.000-07:002011-06-21T07:31:18.726-07:00Epithalamium: Eleventh Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg63K-lwpnv7wFx8FravMxsgPgeq42NiIGOFIU5ytZBRe9ewH07zVy0VCEjnF3b5-LMC1hbCI6vUO-A6qjlnB2t06T94nePOaHUyA12VhsSAX3eOcVDxGB2ZsgP_TJbitntDgHu6zOUJ2E/s1600/woman_book.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620674895747835394" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg63K-lwpnv7wFx8FravMxsgPgeq42NiIGOFIU5ytZBRe9ewH07zVy0VCEjnF3b5-LMC1hbCI6vUO-A6qjlnB2t06T94nePOaHUyA12VhsSAX3eOcVDxGB2ZsgP_TJbitntDgHu6zOUJ2E/s400/woman_book.jpg" /></a>While woman’s rites are life’s passage, selfless<br />As sunrise – man produces art to find<br />Proper reference to himself. Her <em>noblesse<br />Oblige</em> defined, man finds his mate in mind<br />And body, wholly immolating self<br />To win a better half.<br />Thus woman’s soul will lead a man to feed<br />On tempered speech that hopes for love in faith.<br />His temple’s rooted in her maidenhead.<br />His stylus learns to speak her tablet wax<br />While both inscribe the text.<br />As poets find authentic depth and rule<br />Within the margins of whitest vellum,<br />So script is honed. Her love’s regular school<br />Improves his mind by its curriculum.<br />Yes, woman is sunrise and sunset, and man<br />Matriculates within<br />Her golden walls and campus to learn this –<br />That nature unlocks the truth with the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-31475042471458732972011-06-20T10:09:00.001-07:002011-06-20T13:06:06.183-07:00Epithalamium: Tenth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgun3f4XBFRk2pah1ztXNqLTnnu4y6xbnq6SiMith9x5lfg0a-Ty3RWKTUQnGxrC_nM1tktWs6mRpsnvrWFOiifF8s0FkZpyYkvliEQKfSLqe_IhswFky7Wb0-sT3x7lVu8CH8uGypjxHQ/s1600/roundbarn.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 259px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5620350883527251234" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgun3f4XBFRk2pah1ztXNqLTnnu4y6xbnq6SiMith9x5lfg0a-Ty3RWKTUQnGxrC_nM1tktWs6mRpsnvrWFOiifF8s0FkZpyYkvliEQKfSLqe_IhswFky7Wb0-sT3x7lVu8CH8uGypjxHQ/s400/roundbarn.jpg" /></a>Were we clever gods, we could take and make<br />Our songs of songs from fashioned battle-shield<br />And spear, with heads and limbs on barb and pike,<br />And love erotic as a battlefield.<br />If we could be bold to speak of conquest,<br />What soft breath would caress<br />The ears of doubt, surmounting lip and eyes<br />In body language silent tongues discussed<br />With prayer? We'd know a peace without disguise,<br />Collecting royalties<br />Where marriage country’s pastures, barns and fields<br />Hold pregnant harvest; the kingdom’s country mile<br />Holds court between the hayrick and round bale;<br />The plough’s yield holds back beaten swords' returns;<br />And God alone suffices in the wheat<br />That man takes and men eat<br />Piece by piece to know that peace is found in this –<br />That nature’s harmonized within the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-76431727518254358992011-06-17T06:58:00.000-07:002011-06-17T07:06:28.482-07:00Epithalamium: Ninth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPiIBADimw6IYFbJxUmYEzueoVPQ38bzsjh3TlDwmQwv8-FioucPF_r5yqxDJ4OvbqbQniR7uFbBNEWpO0oW2hMHfAq9MJlTUgUNWdCYBSQgtgOrH_Eaaqmcvob7VJbZCvsimAZnmM-i0/s1600/black-and-white-stripe-523.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 283px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5619189725763455746" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPiIBADimw6IYFbJxUmYEzueoVPQ38bzsjh3TlDwmQwv8-FioucPF_r5yqxDJ4OvbqbQniR7uFbBNEWpO0oW2hMHfAq9MJlTUgUNWdCYBSQgtgOrH_Eaaqmcvob7VJbZCvsimAZnmM-i0/s400/black-and-white-stripe-523.jpg" /></a>Presence of all color and its absence –<br />These are the principles of matrimony<br />That we dress between sixes and sevens,<br />And to the nines. So, the ceremony<br />Contributes flesh to words that spell and sound<br />A candid gown’s profound<br />Renunciation of anything less<br />Than love’s everything. But groom assumes his ground.<br />Declaring dark, his counterpoint’s address,<br />He dons a funeral suit this sober morning,<br />Joyfully informing<br />His death to the world in whole cloth and prayers<br />Offered in the sanctuary of a vow,<br />A promised place from which all graces flow,<br />A rock that issues manifest waters<br />And sets a desert spinning rainbow hues<br />That restless love pursues<br />In light and shade, both staked and claimed by this –<br />That nature dresses by the color key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-40697539197098342362011-06-16T07:08:00.000-07:002011-06-17T06:58:26.484-07:00Epithalamium: Eighth Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBm7zSYwkYQ_XPnxxqeP__qYj-xX_aN_JYJIJfDcujnee-u3OxxGW71aeNUaspslaHXAvPb5B0wnjsC6DydYyVlTY71qkGfX_VrScB3zfOoXtYN-j5oQ82c9ajiHgfbR1IUKA6HaBZkU/s1600/aileen+aroon+3.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 270px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618820233654872194" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgBm7zSYwkYQ_XPnxxqeP__qYj-xX_aN_JYJIJfDcujnee-u3OxxGW71aeNUaspslaHXAvPb5B0wnjsC6DydYyVlTY71qkGfX_VrScB3zfOoXtYN-j5oQ82c9ajiHgfbR1IUKA6HaBZkU/s400/aileen+aroon+3.jpg" /></a>Village weddings are complex affairs –<br />Most kindly described as “political.”<br />Once fiddlers get their pay, they'll put on airs<br />To quilt the planks with quadrille, waltz and reel,<br />And play the summer chimneys from their swallows,<br />Dead men from their gallows,<br />And old folk back to darling dreams of youth.<br />The fife, the bohdran, squeezebox and banjos<br />Rouse “The Mad Buckgoat” to jigs, and tell truth<br />To “Priest in His Boots” with “Aileen Aroon”<br />To dance up “A Scot’s Tune.”<br />The farmer boys hum them all, running apace<br />From graveyard to church steps, except today<br />A holy hush recalls them from their play…<br />They blush dumb with looks to see the bride’s face,<br />Prepared at last, bouquet for anchor, fast<br />And firm before a last<br />Glance to the choir loft where voice joins voice to this<br />That sings to find its nature by the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9061305057564154811.post-15474107526562619132011-06-15T08:08:00.000-07:002011-06-15T08:36:11.637-07:00Epithalamium: Seventh Hour<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKxQAIcJSto9TiV6JF28F5ll5Wpe1KM2ig6yGNzgUMRlvWCB3f9XMaRgZZLA2vT9A_Px87m7vrvpIT1EmhfEhVxhJvp-OYPH6zZzwTWKFR30LOIbRYbKKWLXh3de7M6J36R6c4k-0G93U/s1600/marmelade2.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618468697289315330" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKxQAIcJSto9TiV6JF28F5ll5Wpe1KM2ig6yGNzgUMRlvWCB3f9XMaRgZZLA2vT9A_Px87m7vrvpIT1EmhfEhVxhJvp-OYPH6zZzwTWKFR30LOIbRYbKKWLXh3de7M6J36R6c4k-0G93U/s400/marmelade2.jpg" /></a>Midmorning tea and toast with marmalade<br />Will bolster bride and groom against a rampage<br />Of taffeta and tuxes; snakes to braid;<br />Slacks to press; and hangovers to manage –<br />White noise of detail, white heat of minutiae<br />(A great-great-aunt’s fuchsia<br />Pantsuit provokes the bride to sudden tears) –<br />Such lapses are the comic lacunae<br />Which stuff the pillow full of talk for years<br />And show how the sun's sacramental rise<br />Can cast all enterprise<br />In half a shadow, man’s own breaks and faults.<br />But swelled to hear the weather’s good report,<br />These hurricanes at loose ends fly apart<br />And calm falls like wind on water. Time halts.<br />The bride is rising to the occasion<br />Without hesitation.<br />Her heart’s red-letter day finds her peace in this –<br />That human nature’s voice can reach the key of grace.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0