January 2011
VOL XIX, Issue 1, Number 213
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
The Organ Grinder
a cycle in 4 parts
by
Chris Watts
An Organ Grinder, Awake
1.
For the first time, the beating made sense -
rhythm, new noises: connected, messages -
and the crowds,
for a time, did too
overhead that day, it wasn't the first but
somewhere near it, in space at least:
“ask Michel,” he thought, “he will remember,”
but the only thing that changed
was that he knew to ask, and
the little girl came again to hear;
her exasperated au pair dragged reluctant as a rutting horse
rolling eyes and flashing ankles, the smells of hot cotton -
he knew then, before he heard the crows on the battlement
unused, and he put down his drum
2.
It was lonely at first, until he discovered
truly, say what you will,
a monkey gazing into a mirror is not so different:
“even man is confused,” he thinks
there might be a song in there, somewhere if.
One infant finger touches glass
cold spasms under the fingernail
his identity shivers, bleeding first
{knowing is remembrance}
{remembering is high honor}
{honor is for courts, and fools}
{he is a fool no longer}
preservation is the first rule
expansion the second,
especially in time this odd
his feet were first
there before him
countless roads that tore the soles
and splintered bones meant for grasping
eventually flattened, lengthened
the pain kept him awake at night
he didn't see a mirror again for some time
taking for granted that his changes were mostly
internal
he missed his drum dearly, the organ too,
fingered small patterns on the ground
at midnight – on the hard ground –
one cool Mississippi night,
met a man at a crossroads
who mistook him, but
then he perpetually made the same
mistake. Karo’d time spills out, sweet and erratic,
and cornbread across the field, his yesterday far beyond
tomorrow and lonely with it, without the crowds and crows
and her – blonde-small, smelling like a summer pool – all
this a moment between speech and stars
still, he traded, without words mostly
and from behind the fire
all he showed was his hands,
into which were placed
silver spoons still warm
3.
He was unrecognizable,
diminished
but strengthened
he had melted the spoons into something more useful,
angry at pretension now, clear
lenses for his eyes held those spoons over his nose
the most useful tools were focused
and intent
on magic, certainly
New York was a festering place
he lost weight but he met people
isn't that always the way
magic was different here too, smaller,
un petit rien, perhaps, buried in garbage and sweat
too many singers
too many percussionists
so his voice was lost
his hands and his voice
learned anew
“keep your eye on the beetle, folks,
oldest trick in the world –
almost oldest, anyway,”
a wink, and the mostly male crowd
chuckled low –
not like they meant it –
their barefoot shifting
the alleyway leaning in
the stray, yellowed underwear held by
clothespins high overhead
and for a minute he remembered climbing walls with these
hands
he lost his beat
and then he ran
if it weren't the same, it could at least
be different
she was the third from the left
grown now, into something
that burned his heart when he stared too long
burned his feet, his heart,
remembering pain and something holier,
the roads traveled and a promise
she spent her face on his eyes,
burning that place newly discovered.
He saw her face and ran.
An Organ Grinder in LA
1.
It was as far away from it all
as he could get, the sidewalk ends in sand and
waves for God’s sake:
“not sure, old man, that I know you’re there,
but it can’t hurt to cast would-be’s on the wind
not here, with these hands,”
one of which held a gift
the little sliver he kept
if you looked at it just right, it shone
something fierce
obsessed with the twin ideas of pain
and loyalty, he began seeking more mirror;
one piece the same size, from the same kind
of glass to embed under each nail;
LA is all about PR
2.
He was offered his first role in a film, ironically
handsome now and fully man,
where you can’t even see him
doubling for Grant and really it’s all feet,
all along, it was all in his feet
he always wanted to be paid at night,
showing at the stage just before the bookkeeper left,
mostly because he enjoyed the instinct, revulsion?,
the mirror nails caused others, humans
knowing he was not really one of them
but so convincing
his second part was better –
a puppet theatre,
some crazy white man with a woolly face
asked him to sit for a minute and play,
time did its Karo slide, his face trembled,
they wanted to record his face,
he fled to the streets.
3.
Not so different here, only a different hunger
“why am I so possessed by my belly,” he thinks?
“it was never like that anywhere else,” and
drifts to sleep, hearing the faintest sound
of caravansary harness on the wind
beneath the overpass, among disease and distrust,
his only treasure the red coat
“Cardboard and drainspouts
pretty much cover it, Officer.”
the blue man in his blue suit
carrying weight badly
but unable to put it the fuck down
anywhere but at the end of this billy or
the waist of these pants: “How do ya?”
“Lucky you’re not a girl,” he thinks
anything can happen here
and no one notices
he’s drawn to the beach, and
it’s there he goes for his dailies:
bum shower, and a salt shave for the beard he cannot
seem to be rid of
hairless as an oyster otherwise
his face betrays him.
An Organ Grinder Picks His Teeth
1.
He sits still now, at rest and in shock
his legs still thrumming from the run
and the scare he had
stepping through an opaque bubble in the air
screaming soundlessly for minutes that cataract
to nothing and he's there, again
wherever there is, this time
“…and that's just it,” he thinks,
“time is the issue, time and pressure.”
And the golden hair that spills from her head
changing to silver forward and blonde backward
each and every instant he sees her, his memory
blows free like petals of some rare flower
growing only in Crete maybe.
The last time he was there
he was blinded by the washed-out, bestial sun/rock/waves
maybe.
But here he sits again, counting on
one much grown hand, manicured and almost
covered in red to the elbow on the right
thinking and panting, his monkey lungs the only
thing monkey about him anymore:
“It's a revelation,” it was bound to be nothing else, and suddenly he’s
aloud and remembering all the momentum,
“Why else would she remember,” run to him
once and shy/afraid/run another, those
familiar twins, parallel or intersecting, his
brain is larger now: balmier
and capable of computation,
the sun sets over the road.
He can't stay awake any
more
2.
Sound and light, it's always like this
sound and light and the uncontrollable urge to run
to mate, toread/toeat/todance
his feet were the first to go, and he still remembers
what it was, cracking bones on the backs
of unforgiving asphalt, to crank the box and wait for a song,
to play the drums, the spoons, the organ,
the pin on his lapel is made of silver
and it takes the shape he remembers if the light hits it right
{the orphan}
the city on the hill is called Avalon he remembers
and an Elton John song springs forth, was
it the diner counter or some burned out hulk with wheels
and an eight-track? Somewhere he heard
something burning down the streets of Avalon
and he remembers poignancy, a scene, a debacle:
the Catholicly-promised head exploding on a beautiful summer
day, and he says to no one in particular, in the crowd standing next
to a young man the rest of the country will soon know all to well,
"now you know how I feel, man"
These three things are intertwined now, eidetic memory faded
and roseate with confusion, swollen like worn tissue:
Avalon, that song, that President
so he feels the shot and he feels Vietnam
and he feels hate at circumstance,
and he grins sheepishly, even when he sleeps;
the whores tell him so when they wake him the next day
apologetic at their successes of the night before.
He apologizes too, that is who he is, what he has always been,
apology in song and change,
and he cries for no reason in the arms,
vaguely remembered chalk white arms
but the city of the hill beckons him far more effectively
and he steps lightly from the transom plane he has come to love
that bubble of oddity no longer screaming in the Technicolor daylight
no longer reminding him of Karo and cornbread,
and he wonders which hall will hold the table
whether she will be there, and who she will be,
who he will be
3.
The truth is, Lancelot
laid his sword down
at the foot of the man
he named brother on his lips,
and father in his heart,
he laid his sword
down and he swore
to forsake her
in this life and any other
he would travel the land
sad but always second
to the King, always
the fool who lied
to the King Who Died
the Grinder picks his teeth,
one much grown hand,
manicured and almost
covered in red to the elbow on the right
thinking and panting, his monkey lungs the only
thing monkey about him anymore:
remembers just like it was yesterday
because it was, in a way, yesterday
he grabs his valise and starts down the road
again, this time revoking.
An Organ Grinder Goes to Hell
1.
Woven plant life juts between the stones of the path, solid
blood-colored petals and thickly green stems humming under
the Grinder's bare soles; where broken glass remains the idiot child,
the bone-blond orphan has not been - only in moonlight, crying for his brother,
does he emerge to care: the path well-tended
weaves through patches of damp weeds and towering scrub growth
the smell of gasoline is cut by occasional gusts of honeysuckle
The oak at the bottom of the hill has been struck
by lightning, yes, and clinging plant life nearly dead
on the lee side, away from the cliff face
its dark opening amplifying the contrary echoes of the sea,
and bees feasting on the muscadine that props the tree upright
Daylight crests the top of the path, and the soiled prints of the Grinder
glow greenly; “another depression to add,” and “what strange mathematics
here,” he thinks
2.
Above the gate, the arch, the glen open below and leading to the path, is an old sign, in a sad song script,
a twist of fate, written in a forbidden Gaelic denied to all
but the bone-blond idiot who emerges cat-like from his hollow
to braid and think - but mostly to whisper to the flowers
knowing no salt but tears
knowing no wind but breath
they shudder there, rising again from the careless press
of a misshapen foot; green sap spoils quickly
His fingers fold the strands, and thousands of feet away,
on a still-dark hickory stump, the Grinder watches
a mystery answered but he fears movement
undecided, he waits
Conversation isn't all it's cracked up to be,
he thinks, much like this path to Persephone or whomever
she might be now. The day is full of birdsong, but not here
over the hills, yes, and from beyond the cliff, but
not here
There are only green things here, and ill-tended elsewhere
"I'd blaze a trail, had I light," he says - quietly - but the bone blond child hears anyway despite the hum and crash from the cave
despite the distance between them
“Have you ever seen.”
3.
Closer to the opening now, and under a false bit of hair hiding a hollow
shaped like a chalice - dog's hair, he's sure - the Grinder removes something precious; heavy and smooth, cold and slick with dew, two pieces
eyes to a statue
Rattling the cup was his only job
the only thing he had, once, in New York and elsewhere,
the same motion as the crank that finally broke,
he and the small Vietnamese man faking abbreviated limbs
like the picture from an old movie, a skateboard, a gapped-tooth
grin and no one pays attention - their money thrown absently so they
need not look
"The first mistake I made," he thinks, aware this time that noise is meaningless
but afraid of miscalculating again where the child is concerned,
timeless care of the plant life that would otherwise destroy the way
to this place, "the first mistake I made, was caring"
He leaves his hat, his grandfather's hat, against all accounting
in the smooth hollow, covered with hair again, but taller now
and takes his first steps down
4.
There is no truth serum to be had
you can count the bee stings though
which he should have seen
there was fleabane above, just outside the cave
but the angry flare above the cliff hurried his movements
too much daylight and the portal closes
Complete darkness,
the only points of light from under his nails,
the muscadine bites from above
shattering his composure, what little he owns,
with a pulsing beat of his heart
Slippery floors slippery truth
he no longer has the body
only memory and pain, alternating
the price of entry, something the oracle did not
foretell
5.
A leveling place, shattered statuary just out of sight
a gash on the inside of his right foot
no other anything
but a shallow bowl of stone
a shrine in the center
one lock of hair and a shell mirror
to take back
Above and outside, the bone-blonde smiles and stands
removing her cloak and turning to walk, her hips grow fuller,
her figure spreading, breasts bud and rise, her jaw grows smooth and
the weeds begin to die, "up and out," she says - one small finger,
missing its last joint, raises to her lips, and all sound stops -
"up and out,"
for the last time.
The Organ Grinder (c) 2010 by Chris Watts
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2011 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
COMMENTS & SUBMISSIONS
* Klaus Gerken, Chief Editor - for general messages and ASCII text
submissions: kgerken@synapse.net