song_of_thea

As I stand upon the edge

Of forgotten memories

A supernova flashes

Bright on the night horizon

 

It’s time for me to move on

This desolate plane shall cease

Giving life to this shattered

Mountain of heartbroken souls

 

I look down from the tower

Of craggy rocks and scattered

Bones attached to broken thoughts

I once lived here, loved this place

 

Our once bright beacon of light

Has forsaken us hence forth

To the heavens I must fly

Past Polaris of the north

 

This edge of the horizon

Becomes my earthly launchpad

My ceramic wings unfurled,

Fare thee well, oh mortal past!

 

To chance upon a melody in passing

Can be but a blessing,

So long as you passively listen

Moving on when the song has finished.

 

But an earworm can act with

The worst of intentions

Ringing in your ears constantly,

Your own dreadful clanging curse

 

Perhaps it began with the wrong band

Playing the wrong combination

Of chords or lifted samples

Or lyrics entered your ears

Like daggers, and you promptly tuned

All of it out, turned off

With the smash of a button

 

An open chord in a minor key

Brings throes of ecstasy when strummed by

Electric guitars proclaiming

Another has fallen! Savor this moment!

 

This becomes your own personal anthem

When you are fifteen.

Perhaps for just one summer,

You and your friends march to the beat

Of one frantic drummer

 

But those same notes in the waves of an 80’s keyboard,

Without the mournful minor ninth of the guitar,

Substituted with a synth playing a major second,

No tragic backstory,

Substituted with unrequited romance

That would be banned in the era of #Metoo

 

The warped sound at the hands of the wrong band

Now a toxic parody

Becomes thoroughly exhausting

Permeating darkest thoughts, made worse

By a wailing singer who shouts at you

Claiming you are cold, and that you shouldn’t

Say NO, lest you want to die alone

 

You think as they

Fall off the voice

Off the key

And thanks to too many drugs or cigarettes

(who knows?)

Off the breath,

“Then LET ME die alone!”

 

While the airwaves proclaim

“This is a hit!”

Those casual words and hammering keys

Plant seeds of doubt

Into your deepest thoughts

 

Yet more baggage for when you reach adulthood

And your exes call you cold or unloving

In the heat of a fight

Without context of that song

 

The casual plunged into the agony of

Disgust wondering,

What were the record execs smoking?

This is truly awful!

Yet as it weaves itself into your inner synapses,

That sound never leaves your head.

 

When it pursues you

Even after you run,

It begins to ache in your soul,

Its manifestations

Take on the macabre,

Whether by day or by night,

There is no solace

 

Your friends obsess

Even thirty years gone

Of crappy bands past and present

And yet to come

 

Still, you’re cornered

For your soul, for

It has come full circle

Eventually, all of the worst trends

Make their comeback

 

So take pause, friends

For one person’s pleasure

Can lead to another’s demise

Auditory Imagery Loops run endless

Inside one’s head

Never for better,

Always worse,

Sadly, there is no cure.

 

I recently spied a ghost drifting over my threshold
Her radiance sparkled and called my attention to
Her expression was pensive and her heart unsearchable
As if resigned to some role-play in endless loop

This ghost was everything I imagined her to be,
I had read about the house’s history and knew it must be she,
The first mistress of this house,
And she came to see me!

Draped in a canary yellow pant suit, and carrying a glowing cigarette,
She seemed to spot me as I gazed upon her visage,
I paused, imagining what the house must appear like to her,
Cold, perhaps, as all modernity persists.
Smoke free, no golden shag carpets
Only startled cats scampering away,
Firm oak floors that shine,
And the sheer absence of the color yellow,
Save for on the painting above the piano.

Ethereal clouds of scentless smoke drift from her nostrils
While the glow of her cigarette catches my eye
Our other pictures, portraits briefly catch her glimpse
Before she crosses the house toward the cabinet near the kitchen

“I could use a drink,” she said at last,
I jump, unaccustomed to the idea of a ghost entering and demanding libation
Then I comply, on a whim,
As if a ghost could hear me ask.
“What would you like?”
“Champagne!
To celebrate the life I’ve just left behind,” she replied.

“You’ve just died?” I ask with incredulity,
“You died and simply came here?”
Perhaps recently departed have problems to solve
Before leaving this spinning sphere.

“I certainly think so,” she said,
“My life was lived here
For many years
In this sweet abode.”

“I had forgotten that,” I said, feeling ashamed
For the walls covered with paint
Masked her history,
But she did not seem to mind.
I wondered why.

I opened the refrigerator, and procured a bottle of champagne
I had planned to drink it a few days from now
On my next birthday

Perhaps she read my thoughts, as ghosts are want to do,
She lowered her lids a little,
Then exhaled
Another cloud
After a drag from her glowing cigarette.

She finally said, “For your birth, I shall toast to you.
For my death, you may toast to me.
Simply set the glass down, and I shall partake in my own way.”

I did as she asked,
Then I raised my glass,
Took a sip of dry bubbly nectar from not quite France

“What was it like here before?” I asked.
It was burning in my mind for years.
“Quaint,” she said, “a storybook village
Perfect for families with young kids.”

“Not for you?” I whispered.
She merely shook her head,
“It does not matter,” she said,
She exhaled, and
A scentless cloud swelled and cleared

My mistress passed,
I felt a chill, but it did not linger,
Then gracefully, my ghost sat,
And in her champagne flute
She dipped her finger
She raised it to her lips, and blew a kiss
Before she leveled her gaze and asked me this,

“Do you know where you go after you have died?”
“How should I?” I asked, “I’ve only lived this one life.”

“That is not true,
Think harder this time!
We live, then we die, we
Rise like steam to the heavens
We shower down from the skies
Like pollen in the spring
We are reborn
Then we perish
Ad infinitum
Like the bubbles in this flute!
We are graceful in our ascent
We are clumsy in our downfall
There is not one life,
Though you may live it, and give it your all.”

“We reincarnate?”
“Not at all.
We recycle, like rain.”

I glanced at her radiance,
Noting that her visage had changed
She looked the child
From an old story,
While simultaneously like an elderly matron.

Suddenly, there was a little POP!
Then there was nothing,
I jolted awake in my living room chair

Had I imagined this Mistress?
I wondered,
Then I rose
It was late,
The air was stale
The clock on the wall read ten twenty-eight

I sighed and gathered my things for bed
Whence upon the table I glanced
A discarded butt of an old cigarette,
And two empty champagne glasses

On a Thursday evening,
I sit inside, drowning in contemplation
The windows reveal gray skies darkening
Raindrops tap the pane in endless syncopation

The air is cold, and a breeze whistles
Through the cracks beneath the floorboards
My attention to endless drivel
Of nothing is disturbed once more

Since the beginning,
I have sought solace in Silence,
And forever, She eludes me
Leaving me to the throes of eternal sound

Even Cage in his need to push boundaries
Demonstrated in near five minutes
That Silence is imaginary,
All is rhythm, nuance, and pitch

When I was expelled from my mother’s womb early
The beeps and whirs of the machines accompanied my screams
Through the years, soundscapes of the city or livestock from the country
Crafted little earworms to gnaw at my eternal being

When other humans had forsaken
Their bonds of our friendship
And four legged companions ran out of time,
Only the sound of song kept me

Perhaps I am Her pillar
Or as mortals call it, I am but a Muse
For in sickness or health her phrases stir
Feeding me even when I refuse food

I imagine that when I die
Even then, Silence will evade
For the music of Death’s song
Is glorious to merely contemplate

On a Friday morning,
I lay drowning in contemplation as the rains continue to fall
A lone thrush beckons with melodies to accompany
The element’s rhythmic call

“Come outside,” she trills, “I have found berries!
“Glorious they are, black and red!”
I turn from the window, for I am not yet hungry
For the mysteries of immortality

I know that even then,
Silence shall always scorn
For the world of Music
Has marked me for her own