Unto Mount Helicon Whereupon the Nine Muses Dance

An Invocation

A brume bloomed timeless paralyzing

present, yawned beyond grammar.

Blue light, like blue time, morning insistent

Interminable intrigue. [Can]

 "they go about at night, sending forth

beautiful voice"? Yes, and very, yet 

There by the spring they linger, 

For fog has no memory 

and where mother can't find you…

 

Yearning

"I stayed out too late. At Auggie's. And went over my six by three. Or four," said Benny, his dart eyes off in their own private twinkling dimensional plane. 

"Five?"

"I don't know man and she's there waiting for me at the door. Like I'm fifteen again. Asking where I've been do you know what hour it is et cetera.  I literally fell on my face, shit my pants.  Right there in the living room.  Missed the coffee table by," holds pinch fingers, "this much." 

My back itches so I wiggle it against the corduroy futon. Staying at Benny's means making do with what limited hospitality there is to offer. A fridge  full of rye bread, mustard, and half opened beers.

"It wasn't like that for me."

Benny smiles and nods, stirring his sparkling water. "I'm just trying ... to"

"I appreciate it."  His big red nose punctuates his beard-checkered face like a sunset drenched mountain framed by achingly ornery cormorants. There's a sadness there in the cheekbones that I had mistaken for bemused resignation. When's the last time I really looked at Benny? At anyone?

He turns out the lights and as I lay down I think I should write some of this down. Then I remember it's Sunday. There's got to be a world where you don't dread going to work in the morning. Maybe I'll skip. Call out.  There's a thought worth sleeping on.

 

Journey

Man, I missed this city. Burning in by bus, skidding the waves upon a ship, plunging down by plane.

I exit the station and plunge past the morning sun of the Embarcadero noting eerily how quiet everything is – how much accretive background noise we tend to tune out from planes overhead, even the odd helicopter, cars and their muted microcosms, vents, fans, boats chugging on the sea. The sky seems sharply cut. I should write this down, too. Instead I walk uptown, sweat congregating beneath my backpack, looking at the stores that have changed, closed, the permanence of grey things. San Francisco never seems to be far away from my soul, but this city isn't the same anymore so what's that say about my soul? At Jo's house she asks if I've eaten. I scratch my unshaven jaw, trying to summon the right answer. Where did the past two weeks go?  This whole year, the past four?

 

Trials (the First)

It's not accurate to describe Cassia kicking me out. I left.  It's not accurate to describe Cassia, period, because she is, or has been, my everything.  Instead I talk more about myself.  No.  Bad idea. Have I described Cassia to you?  One of the first things I think about is her hair, the way it tassles across her shoulders.  Her shoulders, taut and somehow always cold.  Her nose, aquiline, that's a good word. When we started going out I had visions of fancy in which she was a regal painting, dapples of gold amidst the azures, something late 19th century, that nose so aristocratic in bearing.  As you get to know someone your clarity of vision improves, or, in our case, I stopped seeing what was real about her.  I stopped imaging her as an old world portrait around the time I started fantasizing about what her belly would look like pregnant.  I'm not accurately describing Cassia at all.  This is still more descriptions of me and my descriptions.  This is the problem.  Also, the problem is I left, she didn't kick me out.  She didn't ask me to come back, or, hasn't yet, either.  Maybe that's not the problem.  Maybe the problem is I can't stop thinking about how I should be writing this down.  Giving this story some shape.

Jo lives in a mansion she rented from some East Coasters who are putting off retirement while their younger daughter finishes school at Princeton.  Jo provides an air kiss on each cheek, continentally. Jo plants her veiny hand with its five long silver ringed fingers firmly on my shoulder and delivers a deep practiced look of understanding as I explain that it would just be for a little while.  Jo shows me the spare room which I can use, the spare rooms I can't, the kitchen, the dining rooms, bathrooms, library, piano recital room, she points out to the deck, mentions a work from home offfice suite and a gym room, points to the stairs to the third floor.  Jo sets out towels, apologizes for having to go to work, "sorry, I'm actually really late," and says I can borrow the car if I need.

"I like to walk," I demur.

"If you change your mind, keys will be here.  Don't forget the combination when you come back in."

"I'll probably just rest up.  Thank you so much. Shower off, first. Please. The water is very hot so be careful. Rest. I'll be back by eight."  

So I borrow Jo's car to drive to the bank re:$ and a cop pulls me over within a minute. Do you know why I pulled you over? Failure to come to a complete stop.  Does a record of this exchange follow my name or Jo's car or both here on in?  'Traffic violation' is too violent a term don't you think? It's a hastily assembled catch-all that doesn't do justice to we wee scofflaws rolling through our midday California stops.  Why do we even follow these rules? I should write that down. I should bring this car back and walk.

Instead I stop by a bar and listen an old day-drinking cougar tell me a story about her nephew who was the drummer in the band BeHeld and who traveled to Thailand and came back an ordained barefooted Buddhist monk.  Then some guys came in and explain to me all about estate tax exemptions, Congolese Cobalt mining, the New York Jets, the myriadic problems with the work of Thomas Friedman, and they promised to give me the real scoop on Chinese spy satellites next time, then I remember about the bank and say I'll be right back and the bartender this guy named Chris are still discussing the changes in the weather in very resolute and stirring tones when I get back all angry about the traffic and right behind me come these two Lithuanian girls come in and we buy them each a drink, three times, and we all smile a lot but they have to go and the place is suddenly filled with many different kinds of people, how did that happen, and one of them has borrowed my barstool so I'm just standing there like a schmuck so I pop out for a smoke and see that the sky is dark and realize it has become night and when I get back to Jo's place she is pacing the vestibule.

"You can't stay."

"Wuddaya mean?"

"Stealing my car? Leaving the scene of an accident!"

"I barely tapped the guy.  And I was just borrowing it, like you said.  See, it's right there."

"My co-worker Martha texted me to ask if I was alright since she'd seen me peel off after hitting a pedestrian."

"Barely tapped.  D'ja tell her it wasn't you?"

"Out."  Jo handed me my backpack and a Tupperware still warm with food. "I'm sorry about what you're going through and all but, not enough to bring my house down too."

 

I realized later that I didn't even tell her about the traffic ticket.

 

 

I hadn't planned to go to my sister's apartment because I didn't want to.  I didn't want to because she would know that I was only there because I had to be there. Then she would want to talk to me about it.  I didn't want her to talk to me about it.

 

"Hey you" she says, smiling, deep black wading pools under her eyes.  

She opens the door a crack, her voice a hair louder than a whisper. A dog barks and she closes the door again and I hear her hissing threats at the dog and escorting it away, three moths dance in the light by the buzzer while I wait.  A few minutes later I hear her come back and she opens the door again, wider now, "my brother is always welcome, I just, I just put the kiddos to sleep," she says, motioning dismissively behind her in a gesture I know innately translates to 'that goddamn dog' The clock on the microwave shows that it's 10:34pm. "Come in! Come in," her hair is tied up like a frayed knot tied around two chopsticks. Tiny pieces of egg and peas and applesauce wrappers and Bratz dolls and watercolor fingerpaints are all Jackson Pollack'd over the table "Shhhhh" she cautions me, starting to clean up then turning back around to give me a hug, then cleaning some more, then offering me a glass of wine, then seeing the mail and looking through it with a worried expression, then apologizing and clearing a space on the couch by placing the dog toys and the socks and leggings and an unspooled roll of Bounty paper towels onto the recliner next to the framed portait of mom.

She nestles herself up on the opposite end of the couch by placing the purple toy teapot and the cut-out paper flower bouquet and the Styrofoam takeout box a quarter full of orange Indian food and the book with the missing cover about the Elephant and the Piggie and and and and and and and and, into a green milk crate on the counter by the toaster.  Then she finds the cover of the book and hands it to me.  She remembers the wine and gets up to pour it.  Slumps back down.  We each sip.

"Is it alright if I stay the night?"

"Of course, yes" she says, adding "Any time" then the clouds of conditionality track across the horizon of her mind, I can see her eyes following them in the distance, "If the baby won't bother you, that is.  She's up and down most of the night.  And Kellie's got dance tomorrow so we're leaving early."  I hand back the book cover and grab a hairy pillow off the dog kennel. "Your nephew's with his father tonight," she says, still cloudwatching.

I don't want her to talk to me about why I'm there so I close my eyes.  When my eyes open again it's because two little fingers are prying my eyelids apart.  Kellie, beautiful auburn haired gap-toothed tutu-wearing Kellie, looking very concerned and asking why I'm on the floor.  I reach a groggy arm up to leverage back onto the couch and feel the dog there, spooled up in sleep.

"Why is Uncle sleeping on the floor," her angelic voice calls out to her mother.

"Get your shoes on, honey!" my sister calls from the bathroom.  I help myself to some Captain Crunch and 1%, then start the process of rounding up dishes and washing them as my sister comes out all made-up, wearing black leggings and a mauve jumper, carrying the baby in her right arm, three bags slung over her shoulder, a coffee mug and keys in her left hand.  "Honey say goodbye to Uncle we gotta go." Kellie puckers up and I lean in to get a kiss and then they are gone and I am left amidst the detritus in silence, the dog on the couch looking at me quizzically like 'well?' so I finish washing the dishes and rip out a page from my notebook to leave a note taped to the fridge, and steal a paper flower from the bouquet on my way out.

 

From blue time before world

 was yet made of matter

 world made of Gods

where God’s dreams spring [unto Mt. Hellicon]

whereupon nine muses dance

evergetic, manupusant, His face badly burnt

demands song, tell a tale, the tale, praise, praise.

 

 

Trials the Second thru Fourth in Most Rapid Succession

Dark ocean roar. Watching cautiously for the undertow, then forgetting about it and getting sucked out to way over my head and yell for help and gulp down seawater. Whoosh and down I go.

The Gomez brothers have this condo right off campus. I hears about it, I loves it, I goes and they loves me and I do this line and do that line and I, through sheer willpower and charisma, I moves the whole night party out to the beach, four cars, only seven headlights, and the beach is empty and I says let’s go in the water, and they protest while I strip and sprint way out to the scrim then step toes out cautiously, for footings or changes to the current and then I forgets and I’m out in the breakers  and can’t touch and floating like sparkly flotsam and the big wave hits and another bigger wave and the sea surrounds me, penetrates my ears and nose and mouth and this is my final moment.  

Figures. Death by drowning.  I can feel my lungs aching, I wonder if I still have any limbs.  There unravels a soundless calm.  I am mitochondria.  The crunch of the surf a distant radio static in the dark then nothing. Why is the world so intent upon leaving me alone with my thoughts?  Maybe I’ll just sleep.  Just sink.  So much easier than thinking.  Then I Sense something waiting up ahead.  Turning sharply I face a pair of tender fish eyes and flinch. What are you doing here, the eyes ask. I stare, willing my eyes to cry, to confess the old sins, admit confusion amidst the tumult yet there below the surface there is no crying, no tumult even, nothing to anchor sensation and emotion in memory, only a stunningly suffocating stillness where the eyes see me and seem to satiate their curiosity with disinterested pity saying this is not your place and they swim away, creating a clutch of bubbles that rise up and I follow. Up.  Up.  Out.  When I break to the surface I cough and scream but I can’t hear anything except the roaring church of the waves which is as disorienting as it is omnipresent, but lights on the land are distant galaxies and I reach and stroke and kick and swim and ache and paddle and push and yearn and repeat and reach the sand and crawl up past the water’s reach and rest and then the globe stops spinning and I manage to stand upright and walk back.

No one knew I was gone.  

 

Later. There's a fire Javier tends and although its warmth feels good, sitting by it seems invasive. My wet boxers attract shivers. Clothes in a pile, sand everywhere. I remember writing in my hip moleskin "happiness is fascism."

 

Later. I watch her curves in those dark jeans try to jimmy her way back into the locked car.  Locked out. Rachel hair. Espadrilles. The mind ablaze. She turns around and I realize she has a face like a dumpling. The fucking peregrinations of desire. The glaze dissolved into a long conversation on the cement steps about the authenticity of the self as expressed through careerism.

    "I know I could be doing so much more," Dumpling is saying.  

    "Then what's stopping you from doing it?" Amir asks.

    "Debt.  Bills."

    "Those are just excuses," Amir says.

    "I guess yer right."  From this angle parallel to the pavement she has a certain caustic luxuriousness, if one were needing to find nice things to say one could admire the commitment to presentation.  Unfortunately what she presents isn't what I'm looking for.  Amir seems to hold out some hope.  

    "No I take it back. I'm the one administering excuses.  It's fear" Amir says.

    "I guess yer right."

    "Nope.  No guessing.  I know I'm right." Amir is a hard worker, I remember, and I wonder how much he makes, how much he has saved.  It occurs to me that I haven't been to work in a week. Amir's greying hair shines in the halogens from the parking lot.  Javier pokes at the fire.

    "Do you believe in fate?" Dumpling asks, apropos of nothing.

    "Fate?"

    "There's definitely maybe a reason, like, that you're asking me these questions tonight.  Like look at Venus up there."  So we dutifully turn to observe the evening star as she reflects her luminescence through Amir's big cow eyes. Twinkling like a song of anamnesis. "The iron in your blood only exists thanks to stellar explosions of long-ago, the gold in these earrings were formed by the breaking hearts of dying stars, and Venus named after the goddess of beauty, could have turned out very much like Earth, but she loved her own reflection too much, and the runaway greenhouse effect left her a victim of burns and mutilated." 

She might have continued talking.  What's with our infatuation with Venus, I wonder, and what does it say about us that we've maintained this inchoate fascination for millennia without ever going deeper than the surface? 

"Isn't it likely that we're fated to be here, in this city, by this fire?”  Inside the condo there is yelling, screaming even, and then silence. I check to see if my clothes are still wet.  They are.

"Humans are natural conspiracy theorists,” says Amir when he has courteously surmised that Dumpling is done speaking.  “Best to keep that in mind. We’re hardwired to find meaning in meaningless coincidences."

Javier gets up and gives the signal for beer and I nod, and Amir nods and Dumpling turns around and nods as well and I can’t keep calling her Dumpling, it sounds bad, but I didn’t ask her name.  She went on about the sun swallowing the Earth until we are just a intrauterine fetus, and something about Andromeda. 

    “What does a wave look like outside of linear time?” I remember writing in my hip moleskin.

 

I wake alone on a bed that's not mine in a room I don't recognize, the sheets covered in sand.  Raw skin between my thighs.  Neither pants nor shirt, moleskin, but a fair middling of shame. "Sorry about the bed," I say, meandering thirstily into the smoky mouth of an i shaped kitchen where two people I do not know are using a broom to fan smoke out of a too-small screened window. Outside a storm is brewing, the walls rumble and the wind whines.  The word I want to use is insistently.

 

Loss

Cassia calls. I miss it. The rain lathers my arms like baby oil as I cross the iron bridge thinking the world is a bitter and complicated place, pontificating other bitter thoughts to the jaded audience of self.  Each wretched step a procession of apostolic penance. When I call her back she sounds the same, which is to say, miles away.   My feet feel like plywood.

          She doesn’t ask where I am but I tell her anyway. "I miss you," I confess.

"You left your stuff. I brought it to your job, they said they hadn’t seen you."

I couldn’t think of an appropriate response to that so I kept walking, holding the phone away from my mouth so she wouldn’t hear my laden breathing in her ear.

“Do you have somewhere to go?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.  Like tears in the rain, I’d just go down there someplace. Follow gravity.

“Do you really?”

“Yeah.”

“I miss you, too,” she says. It feels like a bullet through the gut.

 

Growth

The ubiquity of magazines in quiet waiting rooms.  I make rapid sketches in my new hip pocket moleskin and crave a cigarette but I wait.  ‘Patience,’ someone probably once said, ‘is allowing the restraint of moderation prolong one’s satisfaction.’ I didn’t write that down.  But I make rapid sketches of words there, waiting, writing, and when they call me back, even though I am on a roll I pocket the paper and pen and follow the nice-smelling nurse’s aide down the secret forbidden corridor to the third right and then the second left, to Cassia.

On the drive home I notice how green everything still is.  “The rain’ll do that,” she says, reaching out to hold my hand, and I wonder if I had said it out loud or if she had just read my mind.  We hold hands as I wend the wheel around the curves in the road the rest of the way home. The house on the hill.

 

Doxology

There’s a drug called anger but it’s never going to be enough, and a drug called righteousness but it leaves a sour taste to everything if you try it.  “I figured that I would ascend from the paralysis of private cognition towards a shared experience of the real,” I wrote in the closing pages of the book, plagiarized, I think.  I’d copped it from the notebook and who knows where it came from.  Briefly there was a moment when I debated not reading that line aloud when I gave her the pre-submission read-through.  But so many of our first instincts are motivated by fear, so I examined it a bit and it didn’t hold water.  

So when I got to that part I read it and then I told her, “I don’t think that bit’s mine, but I can’t top it.”

          “Yet,” she said.  “You can’t top it yet.”

 

Epilogue

 

Daughters of memory, 

Peep[ing] past the pulpit coulisses into pink surly hearts of men

we thank thee for these perfect words, verbs

dispositions, dispensations,

your youthful dance lacerating us with awe

granted then the gone in mountains mist

Quick! Quick! Return or that

we may sing us another.