Wisherkings

Dreamtime...
variations in black...
bliss...
then gradually, the forgetting...
odd shafts of light, unwelcome, then more and more, till all was blinded.
And yet shreds remained,
fought for ...,
treasured ...
in the whispers of angels voices...
little bits of the quality of eternity against which everything would be measured and found wanting...
and all the time the growing
and growing
and yet...

Then too, we were the lucky ones:
blouses with pink roses, chequered shirts and white Levis,
there was an ironing board.
And she would cook our dreams while we were dreaming,
and later she would send us out to play...
and the yard went on forever...

There were sounds, textures, songs and symphonies seeping from cracks in the facade of normality, sweet and transcendent,
Resonant. . .
there was Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and me...
mother music...father music..
Orchestras, sopranos...
Tenors, pianos,
Hymn …

Then there was the Beatles... missed first time around, but caught on the rebound,
Potent !
There was pop music, the hissing of summer lawns,
cheeseclothed girls and casual heartbreak smiles
sun-soaked football,
open goals and fresh cut grass
and yes,
the yard went on forever. . .

There was something odd though, in the back of the mind,
Murmur,
Something waiting for a voice, waiting to be heard ...
But maybe we were imagining this,
so for our own good,
we took some time
and played
down stairs...

Then
Late one evening,
From the corner of the eye
John Prine
Alone:
"there's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes..."
and the word was made flesh...
lines between lines,
implications,
connections
connotations,
and that was that really ...

EPIPHONY ! ...

a tear in the fabric of the emptiness,
weak ,
but strong enough to go by...
the path was clearer,
the world got a little smaller and somewhere,
a voice got a little louder
and the dam burst
and nothing would ever be the same again.

When the floods came we swam for our lives toward the future
there were guitars and pianos,
Beating hearts and bleeding fingers
Confession and confusion,
Connection, concentration,
and all the time the learning.

And scratched black vinyl scoured from musty second hand shops
saved for and treasured...
brandished like trophies...
raised up like flags
listening,
learning all the time...
Jim Dean of Indiana,
Jim Webb of Oklahoma,
the pastoral English movement:
the poetry of Keith Reid
( how many bands had a member whose only task was writing the words),
the ambition of Strawbs, Amazing Blondel, BJH , Tull etc.
Then there were
The Lone Soldiers:
the literate intelligence of Roy Harper
the Myth of Dylan,
the open-heart surgery of Leonard Cohen,
the achingly withdrawn Englishness of Nick Drake,
the degeneration of Syd Barrett,
the mystical whimsey in the warble of a pre-1970 Marc Bolan...
the precision of Randy Newman,
the fearless truth of Phil Ochs
and Joni Mitchell
and Judee Sill
and on and on
and on
and
on …
potent archetypes for teenage minds.

School I guess was
cool:
music, football, girls, and books
and learning, learning
learning all the time
and now
writing
too...
tentatively,
self-consciously . . .

No way back now.
Guitars and screams
pianos, tins and boxes...
two crappy tape recorders
back and forth and
back and forth
and back . . .

And learning all the time . . .

Then we saw Osbourne look back in anger
and Dern silent running
and Shaw's man in a glass booth
and Nathan's portrait of Jennie
and obsessed beautifully,
poignently,
on St. Exupery's petit prince
and Beagle's last unicorn.

Then came College:
Independence and philosophy,
wind and winsome,
heartache and candled midnight poetry,
learning and unlearning,
discerning,
the head from the feel,
the fake from the real.
Making some space.
Trying to breath. Reading and reading.
The Americans,
The Beats,
Kerouac's Dharma Bums and Desolation Angels,
Brautigan's anything,
Pirsig's motorcycle maintenance
Cummings,
O'Hara and Cohen and on and on and on.
Thirsting
Bursting.
Writing.
Songs and symphonies,
seeds and germinations.
In and out of
love and favour and
melancholy and ecstasy.
Murder and Suicide.
Devoured Camus
Wilson's Outsider, Occult and Mysteries;
Watson's Supernature and Dragons.
Graves' White Goddess
Discovered Williamson and Heron and smiling and tinkling with Wonder and the World
And the Word.
Hope.

...but then there was always
time...
endless time,
timeless time... time alone and the Ocean.
The was (and is) always the Ocean.
Where we go when we need a hole to crawl in.
Where we go
To breath.
And we persevered.
We inked our musings and mumbled our tunes
And we survived...
not all of us though...
we saw the best minds of our generation
falter...
destroyed by madness and the Whole World...
but we survived,
the blessed ones...
But we do not forget !

And the dreams went on forever.
And there were songs and songs
and tunes and tunes
and happy and sad
and deals and near deals
and no deals
and success and quiet forgetting

and all the time carried by the muse
and lead by the heart
and guided by a longing
and learning all the time and growing
and finding Martha and then Sam and Meg...the important things...
and writing
and listening,
Hollis and Buchanen,
Oberst and Stevens,
Siberry and Gerard,
Germano and Amos
Arthur and Grech
Spektor and Perkins
And all the time panning for diamonds
In the dust.
and loving
and giving
and trying all the while and then,
finally,
sleep
and the darkness.

But listen ,
we are the lucky ones.
We stay upstairs pretty much all the time now .
We are no longer our names or the colour of our eyes.
We are now
the journey
just
the
journey.

This is the journey of which we write
Of which we share.
If it interests you,
Or touches you,
We are pleased …

If not
Pass by. . .

Sometimes we pine for the innocence
below,

The yard...weedy and overgrown
Only touched in dream
And scattered black and whites,

But mostly we are happy.

Though our days are numbered
our work goes well.

We live within the sound of waves
and the blood red sunsets of the great western shore.

Who,
who knows anything,
could ask for more...