11 February 2019 – The One -First Movement / Song 2

As we move beyond Song 1, Dark Waters, and continue to the second Song, I encourage readers of this epic poem to revisit the very first post of this work. That was 7 January 2019. There, I offered an introduction that may warrant a re-reading at this time. Just a suggestion for your consideration. Also, a reminder that sooner rather than later, the techie of the Wannaskan Almanac family will be constructing a separate blog devoted to The One, where all installments from start to finish will appear in proper order. 

Most readers correctly intuited that Song One took us on the original journey of birth, a part of the odyssey experienced by each of us. With that in mind, perhaps Song Two’s place in the chronology of the main character – actually, the only character so far, for just as a baby cannot tell the difference between itself and others, so too, the life that has begun to act in the world feels at one with it. This state of being has both advantages and disadvantages.

Now that you have one Song of 23 under your belt, so to speak, I ask you to let me know how you like this new feature, this epic. One or two of you have commented, but like any poet, I’m always looking for a larger audience – or any audience at all.

First Movement (Arriving) Song 2 – Dismembered

Sounds drop on me like stones and pound my ears

Round rocks falling with no rhythm against

my unshielded face and make me cry out 

to currents to lift me and rush far away

                        just away         leaving             somewhere else                        beyond

I can’t stop the bruising blaring cascade

I hurt deep down and I can barely move

A red-eyed rat gnaws at my frail middle

and only sleep drives the red rat away

I want to thaw out but the air swirls cold

I want to swim but cannot raise my head

                                    Looking down on a green and quiet sea

                                    Struggling to dive deep – stroking out and free

                                    Looking down to find the current flowing

                                                but too far to call the drift’s direction

                                    I bellow thunder to shake the water

                                                listening for an echo –   ripples’ reply – 

                                                some answer to my hovering cloudy mind

                                                but only green silence shimmers beneath

                                    Somehow the dead quiet brings strange relief

                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gray shapes fly and flutter flashing radiance

Middle-straight, my head soaks in sweetest air

            but then a face spills dank and sour blowing

I hear rustling hums but they make no sense 

I make outcries but none seem to hear 

My fussing whirs and spits and goes nowhere

Other voices fall like dirt clods tumbling

            heavy on my head – landing hard and flat

Every sound I make, punctured, airless, stiff, black

Some times I remember I’m still flowing

                        out and away on a night-tide rhythm

I melt into water             I am all gone

                        no one                all forgotten        nowhere else       done

Small bits of me glitter in the current

                        slant and sink wide below to shaded green

Tiny shreds streaked and striped shine and drift down

                        familiar-colored swirling scraps of me 

Some times the rat in my gut falls asleep

Some thing chilled and wet touches my tired face

The sea flares up to stars’ cold distant light

It’s getting harder to remember them

I rock back and forth between wake and sleep

A blue-gray vapor folds my mist inside

            where thinking recedes to deep water gone

I am tired of trying to find the sea

Swimming stops and with it small bits of me

            that I knew once but can no longer hold

I grow curious about this stony place

            and since I can no longer find the shore

I explore the mirror that is water

            the eyes that look at me and do not blink

                                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I start to notice buzzing in my head

            a high single note – a singularity

This humming infinitely dense

a great matter of wisdom not my own

The humming tells me what is safe and not

The drone has no words but lends me judgment

When things are held out toward me, the tone tells

            me when to take and when to push away

When I am tired, the hum tells me to sleep

When my middle hurts, the buzz tells me, eat.

I want to meet the one who makes this sound

We should be together –  we are alike

But no matter how quick I turn I can

never see who is humming close to me

and so I just listen and hope to see

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One day, one who calls himself my father

takes me to a wide place to pull up fish

First, he lays me face up on the water

swirling me like the currents used to do

Who is this one who holds back the river?

All the sounds in my mouth cannot name this

Now I crouch on the edge peering into

water copper-black running very fast

I try to see below but I cannot

I remember flashes of older water

Now I am free – swimming fast, stroking down 

back to the old  place I just dis-membered

where the singing ghost split me in two and

the specter urged me closer to the edge

the sound growing louder as I approach

It’s drowning out all the other voices

I squat closer to the brink and listen

to the water’s many singing voices

Then . . .

Exploration 1: You’ve probably noticed that sections of the poem are in italics. Why? Do italicized passages have something in common?

Exploration 2: In this first segment of Song Two, what has changed in the voice from Song One? Is the voice becoming clearer, i.e. easier to understand, less abstract, or does it remain in the world of symbols and images more than it abides in the concrete world?

Exploration 3: So far, in this Song, have you discovered a meaning within the title, “Dismembered?”

Next – second segment of Song 2 – “Dismembered”