He said I prefer not to

He said, I prefer not to

homage to Bartleby the Scrivener

A. INKA

Standing on the Edge of Time

Standing on

the edge of time

feel my soul

just

slipping away.

Standing

on

the edge of life

feel my soul

just

slipping away.

Dancing

on

the edge of a rhyme

If time could fly,

love to heal &

words to mend

I would be a shadow

marching amongst

the may mad fields.

Would you dance?

Would you dance

in the light of a

May bright moon

where love,

redemption

and

fire

dance,

a tango

with

sultry

evanescent

steps

of

desire?

Standing on

the edge of time

feel my soul

just

slipping away.

Less attached to the daily current of life. Leaping inside a thought, a word that changes shape by the moment, a hint of color that slips inside an emotion, and then vanishes in a turn. A word that dances in a provocative minuet, the shape of a note that twists and turns inside, a shallow well that we draw inspiration from, and when I drop the bucket, splashing down deep over fifty meters or more I hit the cold springs of memory.

Revelation held in a puddle of water, my hands part the image, and the drops fall one by one. Each year of my life held in a thimble then tossed to the sky that seems to laugh at my presumptions of knowing.

How could you leave? She asked. And the madness? What of the madness? How is desire revealed?

X. di N ka

Ichabod said, I’m a mystic made of dark Belgian chocolate who melts desires on your tongue.

Ibidy bibbid di bop! said the moon to the sky.

Ink a dinka – dink a do! said Mrs. Kalibash to the burlesque dancer Lars on loan from the Swedish ballet, but glad to offer a lap dance in exchange for a morsel of love.

Staying is returning close to memory and memories are shadows that drown all of our recollections. I’ve seen the shadows dancing figures trace their death defying images on the walls. A corridor that leads to a long passageway turns to the left: It was a left even though it turned round and came back to the beginning

IV. Do you remember – how words fell off the blackboard?

First, it was a simple matter of a single letter that seemed to slip off the blackboard – Was it a T?

A, “T”?

Yes, that’s my name. And so your name fell away!

Exactly!

Then what did you do?

I found a mate, an accompanying and accommodating note – not a long note – but a B flat found at the bottom of a horn, that sounded like the wailing cry of a loon, the echoing song of an epiphany by the name of, Iphigenia the half sister of Eros who was a tranny queen who worked by the Williamsburg Bridge.

Ωإ۔

If love could cure and angels would be redeemed. Where the shadows appear and disappear, where the night falters, and love finds its way home. Shall I find you among the shadows?

Then you left? How could you leave when the memory of time was so compelling?

No, it’s the memory of a lie, you idiot!

The memory of a lie echoed like a round resonate note in the culvert pipe by Santa Monica Boulevard. We played bee bop there when the river was dry and the rolling notes of a saxophone would orgiastically exhale. The full burning embers of the hookah pipe glowed in a simmering burn, an E minor sizzled on the grilled.

Sunny-side up! called out the bandleader. Soon enough! said the drummer as he gave tingling snip snap brush of the snare.

The culvert, yes that one, the drain storm, as big as a worm hole by the planet Andar. That one that we slip easily between the realms of here and there. The journey is not so difficult, it begins, generally with the e minor bee bop rift, in a II, VI, IX progression that Charlie Parker wrote on the back of a napkin. Then he nodded off and never finished the ballad.

Do you remember the night of dreams?

Ż

Turning back she faced the oval mirror by the pasture and looked at the winter scene as snow devoured the land. Night’s shadows returned. At midnight the moon was so luminescent the snow was burning white as our ski tracks disappeared in the wake.

The drunken sailor from Leeds said, “An Irish funeral?”

“Christ sakes… this is a literary adventure, turns, twists of the plot, little graveyards if you will, but wakes …. damn, lad, why such a literalist you could be mistaken for an English teacher!

If love could lead, if a song could heal, if our words could leap beyond shadows, would we find ourselves at the end of the day in a room much like our imagination? Would the night falter or would it open gloriously wide like virgin lovers.

“Leeds United!” screamed the lad as he poured out of the door and tucked into the waiting arms of a drag queen who was only too happy for a sea food snack. Barracudas circle closer and closer… less real, more vivacious, and alluring.

Less attached to reality, less attached to the nuance of day to day, less, less, less. Unable to navigate between the faces and desires, the lurid expectations, the small etchings of shadows, a stark jagged line that appears and disappears, the late breeze of summer blows across fields of lilacs and daisies, luscious yellow sun saturated blossoms, and the porch window was left ajar – enough for a bee to saunter into the room – searching between the magnetic points, the reference point of alpha to omega and all the train stops between, in the fields of poppies – lascivious reds overflowing with memory- the hummingbird feeder filled with the succulent ruby juice of fire

Here’s this journey which is obscure but filled with clues like bread crumbs along the trail, nothing is obscure in this journey backwards to home, always to home, the revelation of self.

Spinning

in the enchanting

choir of love’s

enchanted fire.

Hold me close

while time

fades away

Standing on

the edge of time