merry christmas from vintage jane and bob dylan

i'm standing there watching the parade
feeling combination of sleepy john estes.
jayne mansfield. humphry bogart
mortimer snerd. murph the surf and so forth
erotic hitchhiker wearing japanese
blanket. gets my attention by asking didn't
he see me at this hootenanny down inpuerto vallarta, mexico
i say no you must be mistaken. i happen to be one of the Supremes
then he rips off his blanket an' suddenly becomes a middle-aged druggist.
up for district attorney. he starts screaming at me you're the one.
you're the one that's been causing all them riots over in vietnam.
immediately turns t' a bunch of people an' says if elected,
he'll have me electrocuted publicly on the next fourth of july.
i look around an' all these people he's talking to are carrying blowtorches
needless t' say, i split fast go back t' the nice quiet country.
am standing there writing WHAAT? on my favorite wall
when who should pass by in a jet plane but my recording engineer?
"i'm here t' pick up you and your lastest works of art.
do you need any help with anything?''

(pause)

my songs're written with the kettle drum in mind
a touch of any anxious color. unmentionable. obvious.
an' people perhaps like a soft brazilian singer . . .
i have given up at making any attempt at perfection
the fact that the white house is filled with leaders that've
never been t' the apollo theater amazes me.
why allen ginsberg was not chosen t' read poetry at the inauguration boggles my mind
if someone thinks norman mailer is more important than hank williams that's fine.
i have no arguments an' i never drink milk.
i would rather model harmonica holders than discuss aztec anthropology
english literature. or history of the unitednations.
i accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me.
i know there're some people terrified of the bomb.
but there are other people terrified t' be seen carrying a modern screen magazine.
experience teaches that silence terrifies people the most . . .
i am convinced that all souls have some superior t' deal with
like the school system, an invisible circle of which no one can think
without consulting someone
in theface of this, responsibility, security, success mean absolutely nothing. . .
i would not want t' be bach. mozart. tolstoy. joe hill. gertrude stein or james dean
they are all dead.
the Great books've been written.
the Great sayings have all been said
I am about t' sketch You a picture of what goes on around here sometimes.
though I don't understand too well myself what's really happening.
i do know that we're all gonna die someday
an' that no death has ever stopped the world.
my poems are written in a rhythm of unpoetic distortion
divided by pierced ears. false eyelashes
subtracted by people constantly torturing each other.
with a melodic purring line of descriptive hollowness --
seen at times through dark sunglasses an' other forms of psychic explosion.
a song is anything that can walk by itself
i am called a songwriter. a poem is a naked person . . .
some people say that i am a poet

(end of pause)

an' so i answer my recording engineer
"yes. well i could use some help in getting this wall in the plane"

Ch. 3- Parlour Treasoné

My head is a long swirling chain of things I don`t dare to think about; apparently it gives me an irresistable charm. Donald told me that; he told me that he looks at me as even more bored or sophistocated than himself; he told me I make men long to find something, anything that will make me smile a real smile.

I hadn`t realized people could tell my smiles were false.

I suppose I don`t really care.

And today, half a summer into this trip, I added another thing to ignore to the chain of things to ignore. (And even thinking about the chain gives me words I don`t want to think of, some of them about queenship and a stone knife and mermaids slipping through free water). My headache, Donald`s headache, the unsuspicious or conniving farewell of Donald`s mother, and the sound of him moving about on the floor below me. My feet on the stairs despite the dull pulse in my head. The odd detachement of my body as I watched the morning light spill in the parlour window, the deathiness or paint chalk that connected between my hands and face, and Donald`s. Many would say I have done nothing wrong; not strictly.

But I am a traitor, and no one to go under the knife for me.

(Oh hell. Aslan, you said you`d send someone for me. If I fall further, it will be your fault.)

Ch.2-Under the Latent Heat of Dreams and the Ridiculous Pressure of Minds

At times, all you can think of is some ugly grey scribble across the plate glass of your sanity. At night, all you can dream of is the simultaneous existence of the colored craving things under the plate glass of your sanity. At night, in my corner room on the third floor, I can hardly sleep for dreaming.

Last I remember, I came here for something. For myself, I think, but I can't remember why. Last night, I could hardly sleep around this dream of my sister face-to-face with a lion I prefer to forget. He told her that I was on the verge of a fall (and the word was so pretty and dark-green that I only half-minded). She cried for me. He said he would send someone to me.

Donald, he is mine and I would half-prefer to fall. Sanity is like a little polite cough-- ineffectual, defeated. I can feel the broken lines in the glass, and all the colored craving things within stroke the surface of the glass and press a little harder against it. The escape is on the verge.

His claims are not so ineffectual as I like to pretend. I only half-mind; I only half-sleep.

Ch. 1: Something I Don't Want To Lose

I'm planning on spending the next several blogs on one story- a story about Susan Penvensie, just around the time of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, just around the time when she was lost. It's largely centered around a dream I had and a quote I read when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe came out on film about how C.S. Lewis "punished Susan for discovering her sexuality". I'm not making any effort to imitate C.S. Lewis's wonderful voice or style, I'm just writing in my own style from Susan's head.

--

The cream spills on the table, salted by her eyes, stirred in with breadcrumbs. I can half imagine it will come to life. If it came to life, it would be a cat, a pale, rough-tongued creature. It would weave around my shoulder and turn grey. Grow wings. Deform. Thrall me. My own loneliness burns a rough tongue along the raw flesh inside my chest. I am not sorry she is crying. I do not tell her I'll miss her. Can you count the tears I poured into the ocean like cream? Hell, but I'm lonely. The weight of responsibility, even the weight of sanity, has been dropped onto me.

The ocean liner contains me like a sardine or like tinned ham, and they say I've got a brilliant career ahead of me. A brilliant career like a firecracker into the silt and slag of life. I can hardly wait. I can hardly wait to be over these waters, not so tossed by thoughts that I can't sleep at night. Sometimes I'm not even sure they think I'm worth convincing anymore. I like to remember Narnia, when it was real. I like to wish. But they must not think I'm worth convincing anymore; they won't even talk to me about it. Hell, but I'm glad to be going. I didn't cry.

Or to come ashore in America and find Mrs. Walton waiting for me, effusive and stylish, and the way she calls me 'darling' and promises me the most lovely time I've ever imagined distracts or comforts me. Or the way you can almost see money dripping around her ankles and heels if you're not too busy being delighted and charming and sophisticated, and exchanging sparring glances with her son Donald. Which I am.

He enfolds me even more thoroughly than Mrs. Walton; I am sophisticated and I am delighted to be here, eluding Donald for amusement. Letting him fold me up under his chin while we dance, letting him whisper that he loves the smell of my hair, and then disappearing into some other man's arms before he can think past that. Letting him take me masterfully by the arm and walk with me under the green new leaves along the streets, buy me ices, pay me compliments, and spending the whole time being just faintly amused by something he can't put his finger on. Playing little games of tag in the sitting rooms and parlors where we spend our time: moving to the piano just after he catches me on a sofa, feeling a sudden need for conversation with someone across the room just as he's cornered me with someone else. Getting tired just when there's no other escape for me and leaving him to go to bed, and yet letting him kiss my hand when I come down for breakfast, and not taking my hand back until necessity requires it. Maybe he'll end up lonelier than I.

Kino-Eyes, part II

Kino-Eyes, part I

In the quietness of my room (where the air is red)
curtains slip apart and my eyes slip closed and (close-up shot of teeth biting their red lip)
I walk away. You can remember what you’ve done, but not why you’ve done it.
You can remember what you’ve done, but not why you’ve done it.
You can deny that, the little beads of oil on your skin that
you try to wash away with water. The pitted impure surface of your face.
Your adolescent body slips into the water.

There is a cool river. A green roil of love.
There are trees there; trees you’ve seen before when you were
a very young child. There are trees there that put you in mind
of your hand curling around the finger of your mother.
There is a current that looks like a solid thing, like you could
taste it, and it would be better than ribbon candy.

There is a long way to fall. You hang, Missionlike
on a long brown cross and over over ice
over ice on the rocks into the blue roar of movement
music like a dying experiment into your thrashing soul.
There is white water there is a pounding sound, the spray
and the mist and your own young changing body bound up in that.

There is a smell of chemicals.

There is a soft blue cloud, something you forgot.
The suspension of the silk-soft bodies in aerial liquid,
the dance of portions of races in gold and rose sweepings
against a blue, blue sky. There is an eye as deep as space and time,
but pale, pale and open. There is no atmosphere that hides you from that eye.

There is the English-garden drift of snowflakes over the little brown leavings of flowers, over the light of the garden lamppost, onto the waxen white surface of the snow. There are her fingers, the way they lilt over the ivory keys of the piano, the soft singing of her. The way you look up, the warmth of that living room, the movement of your nerves, stumbling tongue.

There is a smell of chemicals.

And you walk back, back over the great walls of the city, into the velvet-trimmed red-scarf dance of the city girls, into the avalanching noise of the city men, into the hands of the city fathers, painted and painted by the city children and you,
you are, you are getting late, tired,
and you, your fists are no salvation
no salvation
no salvation at all.

Purpled against the night sky, her arms are bruised now, her white wrists with the marks of your thumbs, the aural defects of her body are too new for you. You can’t quite understand where she came from, where she was going. You thought you knew her, and then again, perhaps not. And you thought you knew her. But then again, perhaps not. And so it goes again. Purpled against against against the night sky she is not like a banner, too bruised on her white arms, but she is like a banner and she is dancing against the dusk like wine.

And you portray yourself, the red and burnt-gold squares of paint, the daubs, the brushstrokes, the model, the painter. There are things you know of yourself, and those things you paint in, but what of your questions? What of the things you wonder to yourself and never speak of? What of the little codes, the half-shadowed inclusions that you never confess to yourself? And you delineate, and you deny, and you debate, fracture,
dissipate into countless pieces on some floor of marble tile. And that is too hard, too chemical. You wrap yourself into a pale fog, you wrap yourself in the aural liquid of music and acousiomatic, until no one recognizes you.

And no one recognizes you.

Playing Detective

Today, I was playing detective. Oh, not so anybody could know.. I mean, I still care, usually, that people don't think I'm truly crazy (just a friendly eccentric). So you know, I dug up my trench coat from the back of the closet, tucked a magnifying glass in my bag, and dressed in a tweed skirt and British shoes. They frown upon shoes that aren't eminently stylish at work, but luckily, I'm too good at my job for it to matter (like being indispensable is a guardian umbrella).

Normally, Thursday nights, you know, I go to the library. Oh, I know, I know, that sounds too forlorn even for a Thursday night, even when it's raining this hard, but I have friends at the library (not all on paper, either). But tonight, tonight I was gathering evidence, not researching. I stealthily followed this tall, innocuous-looking college student who was probably pursuing a useless PhD, composing a terrible, unsuspected history over him as I walked. I've a terribly active imagination and a marvelous facade for to put it under; by the time I followed him into the diner, he had convinced himself that my interest in him was romantic. In another guise, I might have played the part of the brainless young flirt and wooed the information out of him, but I couldn't very well flirt in those shoes. So I smiled a dignified smile when he offered to buy me a coffee, and shook my head so knowingly that he went off and hid in the back booth by the window.

Detectives do not laugh. I smothered my face very seriously in my shoulder and ordered a club sandwich.

"This is just the sort of place," I said to myself, casting surreptitious glances around the sparsely-populated diner, "for to find some nasty criminals, conducting business over the greasy remains of a cheeseburger." I smothered my face again. I'm such good company on days like this, it was really a shame I hadn't nice shoes to get me together with the PhD. boy. Having composed myself, I examined the inhabitants of the (overwarm) diner (I shrugged off the trench coat). Besides the PhD. boy, there was a dull-faced mother reining in two curly-headed children with French fries and chocolate milk, and a very long, very thin, very sparse-haired, sweet man in his forties. I ruled them out as possible criminals, and examined the staff. The cook was merely a white-garbed back who talked too loudly (not intelligent enough to be anything more than a henchman, although he did make a delicious club). The troop of waitresses (there were three; no one could call the place understaffed) was composed of two black haired girls both bearing the name 'Emily' on their nametags, headed by 'Wendy', one of those matronly, sharp-tongued mid-forties women who treat you with a blue-collar kindness that embarrasses, horrifies, and warms you all over (in turns, usually).

"Great Scott," I murmured to myself, scribbling on my napkin. "None of these seem likely suspects." The older-looking Emily, a rosy-cheeked creature of perhaps twenty-five, half-heard me and asked me if I needed anything. I provided her with a half-choked smile of delight, and shook my head. What I needed was excitement, and Emily, sweet though she must needs be, was not the candidate I was looking for.

Since it was a storybook day, however, excitement came in right on cue. The bell jingled, and I shot a smooth glance over at the door. A young damp man in a leather jacket swung a motorcycle helmet in one hand. He was menacing, beautiful, and obviously criminal. I grinned at my adjectives, and did not permit myself a second glance until he was safely seated at a table by the window. His back was to me- how convenient!- and I deduced from the back of him that he had a ponytail of dark hair and studs in the leather across his shoulders, although I wasn't sure how much credit I could claim for deducing that. I shifted down one seat to the left. Younger Emily shot me a curious glance as she went to take his order (a glance I would never have noticed, but for my detectiveness). I shifted another seat down when she had passed; close enough to hear anything that he might say.

His first words were unremarkable. He looked up at young Emily; I got a side glimpse of his face (Level, immovable features. I wished I could get a look in his eyes). "Hi," he said. I decided he was obviously a very important criminal; there was a desperation in his voice that could not be ignored. I also considered the possibility that he was very hungry, but abandoned it as far too likely to be interesting.

Young Emily (who didn't want her part-time job anymore, you could tell) smiled at him and I decided (even though I knew I was letting myself get distracted) that her smile was nicer than older Emily's, even. But she didn't want to be smiling it at that diner; I suspected she was only saving up for something, only passing through the diner's annals. I congratulated myself on that deduction. Young Emily didn't like her job. She seemed like just the type to object to criminal activity.

The motorcycle boy ordered coffee. Not like he wanted it, though. Just like he needed a bit of time and ordering coffee would buy it. I made a mental note of the urgency of his tone. I watched him for fiddling gestures. He ran a hand over his dark head. I made a mental note of that.

Young Emily emerged from behind the counter with the coffee, and my suspect watched her approaching so fixedly that I began to suspect I wasn't fabricating. She set the coffee on the table. He watched her. I slipped over to the bar so as to get a side view of him, but he didn't even notice my motion.

I decided that, if he was a criminal, I might be willing to let him escape. He was watching young Emily as steadily as TV, ignoring her movements and holding her face in his eyes, but his look was not hungry or unnatural or insolent. He was determined and a little impatient, only. Young Emily said her lines: "Is there anything else I can get you with that?"

"Well.." he glanced down at her nametag, "Well, Emily, will you marry me?" I went blank. So did Emily. She manufactured an amused smile. Even I, with my mental faculties all so neatly shut down, could tell that that was all wrong. Amusement? A silence rolled down on the ground for a moment.

"Is that a yes?" he said. Emily's smile faltered and faded. That was all wrong, too. Now she was misinterpreting him. A nerveless laugh dropped over her teeth, and she left the table. Now he looked over at me. I looked back at him for a moment, (just long enough for my eyes to let him know I was waiting on the outcome of this one, too). Then I watched young Emily's tightly contained movements into the kitchen. I could see her from where I sat, her wide, irritated eyes as she gestured to Emily, senior. Could see her half-frown. She hadn't quite registered anything just yet. Emily, senior, patted her shoulder and went out to the motorcycle boy. I turned my attention back to that table (young Emily had not disported herself well; not at all. I had no further interest in her).

"So she won't?" my suspect said, very calm (and yet, somehow, dissatisfied) to Emily, senior.
"Well..." said Emily, politely, brightly (she was a good girl, that she was), "she doesn't know you."
"I have the ring," said the motorcycle boy, pulling it out of his pocket for good measure. I went a little less blank this time; I didn't feel I had any right to be surprised at anything he did. He did have the ring. A pretty little white gold and diamond affair. It seemed like it wanted to leave his fingers; they were too blunt and strong for it. Emily, senior, stared in amazement.
"She doesn't know you," she repeated. Her face was pretty and amusing, caught up like that. "She's never seen you before."
"Well, then, will you marry me?" he said. Emily, senior, made no attempt at a graceful exit. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, and basely fled. The coffee on the table was finished steaming.

Again, his eyes found mine. Again, dissatisfied. But calm. I held them for a second, and then, abandoning my unobtrusive position, jumped up and slid into the chair across from him. He put the ring wryly back on the table.

"They wouldn't have made you very happy," I said reassuringly. "They're nice girls, but they wouldn't have." I glanced back. Young Emily was overhearing. She shot me a look that said she thought me a traitor.

"No," he said. "Probably not. Now I think about it." He picked up the ring and spun it between his fingers. "Probably not. But I thought it was worthy a try."

"No harm in trying," I said. He nodded in agreement. Flickered his steady dark eyes (I decided they were not as level as his face, but more encouraging) around the room. Found mine again.

"Well, then," he began.

"Wait a moment," I said. I reached down, pulled off my shoes, and tossed them haphazardly into the trashcan by the door. "Sorry," I said (Deeply. Never a more heartfelt sorry). "Do go on."

He smiled approvingly.

"Well, then. Will you marry me?"

I nodded. Not enthusiastically, not amusedly, but knowingly. He didn't run for another table. He held out his hand. I gave him mine. He slid the ring onto my finger. I noted with pleasure the Emilys standing in a rabbitlike clump at the end of the counter, staring. My PhD boy abandoned ship. I'm not sure he even paid his bill.

"Come on," said my fiancée. "I brought an extra helmet to get us to the courthouse, and see!- it's stopped raining." His smile was less steady now, kind of crazy and happy and good. I stood up, and he (very considerately, I thought) lifted me up in his arms and carried me out to his motorcycle so I didn't even have to get my feet wet.

“I came for you, really,” he said as he tossed me the extra helmet. A length of white veil tumbled out of it onto my lap. “-Hold onto that- I followed you here. I was playing detective, and I thought perhaps it was you I was looking for.”

Who Are You Singing For?

I know that to you I'm just another body in the dark room, as separate from your bright stage-lit motion as some law firm in New York State. And I know that what I should be doing (what everyone else is doing, what I came here to do) is listening to your music, letting it rock me with a little motion, letting it move me to a little emotion, hearing it, feeling it, thinking it.

So I'm sorry. It's just that I'd rather cipher through the music to you, watch you, find the back wall of this song and figure out what's in your head from there. I want to know who you're singing for. I want to know if this was a song that came from four a.m. and an interrupted slumber or 1 a.m. and too much beer. Or is this an afternoon song, too tired to run, too awake to lie still? I want to know what you think of as you sing, or if you can think of anything but the adrenaline and the movement of your hands over your guitar. I want to know what you want us to think. We're a little hung over on the static side of this room; I wonder if you'd rather we all pulled our faces onto your eyes.

I'd like to find my way inside your fingers, feel the impulses that make you move to this chord and that one, then climb up your arm, over your shoulder, down into the cavity of your lungs and find the pendulum, the pressure that animates your voice. To feel the beat the way you feel it, charged with meaning, in your moving feet. To scrape the upper edge of your skull, the residual side associations you have with your lyrics.

And if you sing all night, until the rest of your band drops out, leaving you pulling out notes from your lonely guitar like a magician doing tricks with grey and brown handkerchiefs, until all the audience deserts you but me- still enthralled by the subtlety and sparrow-colors of your sleight of hand- I will come closer and closer, and you will get lower and lower. And then, we will be sitting on the edge of the stage, and I will be just close enough not to impede your guitar, and you will be just low enough not to reverse our positions. And I will ask you then, over your notes, "Who are you singing for?"