a window into a life, a conversation with a soul, a gateway to a heart
Author: David Koblentz
Inspiration is a fickle muse. Sometimes empty, sometimes overwhelming. These words I write are my own but they seem driven by something else (perhaps?).
the cathedral has awoken life has risen up, up into the outer limbs skyward- reaching up, up towards the sun from the seeds of death leaves decayed long now, feed the ground, have found, once more, that path to babylon, listen, for there is a chorus now a spark on the wind the din of the wild sings marking the coming, of the true spring harken this arrival- the cathedral has awoken with bud tipped spires adorned soon to bloom, in full choir.
the concept is somewhat simple, but are not some of the greatest things in this life the most obvious? the most simple? I like to take a moment, before I get in my car to enter into the mental demolition derby that is my morning commute, a moment to just take in the world, with hopefully a dash of nature, this morning, for whatever reason, I noticed the trees looming over the house, kind of a loose cathedral reaching up to the sky, the empty limbs makes this stand out much more, and as of yesterday I noticed… the sound of spring, it is a thing I tell you, there is just one day where the birds and all perk up, the calendar is not the matter, it is the clatter, just listen, perhaps it is the number or years on my ears and my experience on this globe, perhaps, but the sound, or song of spring is here, sure enough, when I was done looking at the towering spires that tower over my house, I looked to a closer tree, above me, and the buds have formed…
a mention, looking out at the blinds a framed window on a rainy day I feel like I should feel gloomy but I do not, this earthly day, spring in name and calendar date evergreens do no justice compared to full bloom green for even a pine forest, grows cold and the spines do, subdue the ground for now though, naked limbs all twist, upward, waiting not providing the mask that once birds wore in time soon, but not today a grey drape looms over all things so I should feel dreary, all things considered but I do not, maybe the looming comfort of the soup I made last night has me at odds with what the world might want of me, by design, this day, so I say, let it rain.
notes… perspective people, does it always work ? nah… but sometimes you can view yourself from outside and see the inside, if you get my drift… like looking out the window at work… and letting the feelings feel like being…
should I be the one to be exalted by the masses the crowd thumbs up thumbs down to concern myself with this not bliss (bread and circus), should I be more comfort in the comport of a good lady in my consort simple life simple love should that not be enough? (so why do I struggle, so much, frankly – I am a dunce)
notes… those in the room who over think things raise your hand… I enthusiastically wave like a fan in the 200th row trying to get the attention of the band I love.. yeah, so knowing a thing is good, recognition is a good thing… but what do you with it… most of us have everything we need to know, but do we do it minute to minute in our daily life ? probably not, I am not one to point fingers except to point things out, I feel like some days I could be the light of the world.. why the hell not ? but I do not live up to that ideal .. or even close at times, that is failure, but I struggle finding the inspiration and energy to live that best life in every moment… knowing my moments are numbered or at least limited in this form… this is what I struggle with… and try to portray in my art, are you the same?
The End Inn- at the end of it all, terra firma, the edge of even imagination, where the sun meets the stars, the moon might take a respite and sit to have a sip, space and time, for a time, put down their knives, for a spell or to spin one, a window is a gateway out on eternity, frosted over slightly, stained glass galaxies shine like cheap christmas lights, the beginning and the end, all in one point, The End Inn- well worn walls welcome in, the age-d wood is warm and familiar, the patrons all strangers or not, admitted rumors, even the most surly of repute sit for a calm, a storm may brew outside and branches may bray and scratch nails, but not, not in here, within this confine, even without the light of heaven, there is divine providence shine, such as an open untouched meadow, tall grassy tails sway, tall tales to say, but all known to the travelers here, repeated as history, here at, The End Inn. Paladins, thieves, scholars, sailors, salesmen, tailors, men of all endeavors and walks, from the high end towers to the seediest docks, but here, no judge, no learning eye, sins are tokens, shared like wine, a copper coin is the only toll, a fixed drink, over filled cups, a mixed crowd, the only clothing underneath is the common skin, the bond is one humanity, here, The End Inn- so I pull up a chair, the barkeep swings down with a looking dare, a full froth of ale by candle’s light, so that I might join and regale, spin round my eyes and survey the room, for fellows and harlots in fullest of bloom, try as I might to recall names and surnames, just the same as common somewhere lost and found on my tongue, conversation comes out from the corners like the spring flashing rains, here and again gone, flashes, thunderous. boisterous roars, for I can not recall the time now, nor place, but I can count every face, sitting here, in my lot, knowing the comfort of this familiar plot, here – The End Inn.
notes… if you could have your own Fiddler’s Green … would you ? What would it be like ? I much imagine mine like the musings of Neil Gaiman in Sandman… the wandering land appearing here and there… I would like that.
the approach, the slow wind up the familiar road, a family plot destination, a crossroads in a ghost town hosting the event, narrow lanes, not designed for traffic, lined with names, almost familiar by crossing past so many times now, pathways made least not for this procession, what part in line am I suppose to be? the stupid banal base anxiety of not knowing moment to moment certainty, in a place of certainty, the cars start to arrive at the final stop, should I move up? or, knowing my elderly mother can not walk, as well as she used to, but knowing how stubborn she is not to show it, we arrive, almost last, making the gathered have to wait, I could feel the pressure, but then thought, why? another minute will not change a thing, but still I hurried a bit, and my mother struggling to be at the side of her sister, the two left, the two of that generation’s house, and so the ceremony began, in the little narrow street, outside the complex that would house my uncle’s body, next to my father’s, for at least as long as I can count in my waning days, and then I see the casket, draped in an American flag, how was I unaware this was going to be a military funeral? the military is not touted much in my family, not sure why, just the way things are, my father was in the army for a short time but it was almost this unspoken thing, my uncle? I never knew, but there I was, it has not felt like two years since I was on this very spot, for much the same reason, but a hit closer to home, the wind felt just as cold, but the audience was larger with the covid specter no longer looming and ruling, a star spangled casket, I had never seen one up close, the two soldiers, the procedure, the bugle blowing across the stark-silence, even in this cemetery there is quiet, somehow, nestled in the bosom of a noisy-busy suburbia, a large bustling shopping mall across the street buzzing with shoppers at all hours, on this side, this side of the street, just the somber tones of my uncle’s last rest standing in the little street until the bugle notes end, the flag ceremony seems to take forever and a second, so deliberate, and I understand, the careful folding of the flag, handing it to my aunt, which struck me grand, for some reason all I could notice was how the bugle was placed on the ground, then, escorting my elderly mother down the dirt worn-path, to the family plot, I knew the way, her thinning white hair blowing around in the wind, her steps not steady but determined, all of us in a straight lines, almost double file military style, we fall into, and then right angles at tall headstones, the snaking procession of black-clad walked, I don’t like to be in the front, and I thought, also especially since this is not my affair to hang back, the generations, how they move like this strange dead conga line, a great grandchild in a carrier in tow, sleeping, unaware, but one day can be told he was there, dangling there in front of me, looking at the baby’s eyes, in jealousy or awe or wonder, all of these, for babies are the most amazing of things, (how else can you see the future?), so I escort my mom through to the front, the oldest generation of ours now whittled down to two, my mother as one, her sister as two- the one whom today buries her husband next to my mother’s, my father, so few were at his funeral due to covid this seems some surreal re-do, his stone covered over by the dirt that will cover the body of my uncle soon, so even now, now that a family is assembled he seems to be missing that much more, not to take the day away from my uncle, a quiet man of sorts, whom I never heard raise a voice, perhaps even a better man than my father in some regards, but we do not choose our parents, and they are as flawed as we are, some more than others, some less, but now none of that seems to matter anymore, I linger on the edge of the ceremony, trying to get as much sun as I can, the wind on one side ringing my ear, the sun, just enough to keep me slightly warmed, my uncle’s was not a sudden death, somewhat expected, but does that matter now? at these moments? standing here, I suppose not, I am not religious but I listen intently to the ceremonial notes, for thousands of years these same traditions have endured, why should I pretend my lack of belief should come into interfere in any way here, no, for the sake of those I participate, the good spirit is there, from the tradition of wearing a ripped ribbon to mourn, to how dirt is to be placed on the coffin by those who mourn, that sound though, I could not bring myself to lift the shovel and engage in that, the sound of dirt hitting the coffin down in the ground, I remember it well from my father’s funeral, it is an awful sound, the sentiment, is dear, the tradition says a stranger should not be the first to bury your loved one, which I understand, I felt compelled with my father to participate, but not here, not today, rather watch as those immediately in his circle turned the spade over in reverence once, and then two shovel fulls, ceremony, things we can hang on to even if our loved ones are gone, the family plot taking in one more resident this day, so I might come back in the spring, when the grass has set in, and place a stone on my dad’s name, and my uncle the same, and truly hope there is peace out there for humanity. the words of my aunt (the bereaved) most echoed with me… (my uncle had parkinson’s and other debilitating maladies the past few years) “in his clear moments he said ‘you are the best thing that has ever happened to me, I love you’ and then one last time, I came into his room, I saw him crying, I asked him why? he said simply ‘because I have to say goodbye’ “
undress me – with your kisses undress me – with your lips undress me – with your body, and then our hips (meet)- our internal temperature shall rise as our bodies entwine one form now divine (sweat)- slowly now, slowly now, my mouth takes in your left ear lobe as we melt into each other as we melt into one (breath).
the idea of colors, is an absolute wonder, blue sky, blue planet, our perception, our depth, so blinded in this cocoon of atmosphere, we look up and see blue with yellow ribbons, some days, trays of greys the next, a painted landscape sewn of white cotton balloon animals at rest or sometimes on parade, and all this in-within hidden, coaxed into show in rare circumstance but known phenoma-stance, the rainbow, always there as a vertebrate backbone to all the other colors in just the skies alone, even if beyond, our dome, is the inevitable blackness of space, right there in seeming reach, carpeted with the pin lights of an unimaginable number of stars, none so close as ours, but so far, but yet their light, in many hues does fall upon these shores, perhaps even the dead light of a super nova, and most light we see far before we were born, their light of now will only reach us a thousand years from now, can we get our head around such comprehension, such length, such distance, such the matter of waves, across that vastest of the cosmic ocean? if we could only travel on that spectrum, as a molecule, to alter our perception to not only see colors but to perceive them as whole cloth, as they are, as the threads in the fabric, the wardrobe maker of the essential forces, all tied in, a web, the spectrum, a spinster’s spool, I close my eyes and imagine setting sail on such a dream wave… for if I am right, I will not need my physical eyes to see, only my sense of being – of belonging here and everywhere I might be, upon that most noble of seas, the stars as buoys, god as the gps…
Water… and time… even when nearly frozen or our perception thereof they are moving, perhaps to different states of matter, always moving, not always like a river, not always in the direction we might perceive, both a measure of our lives when they run out… a strange Gemini to ponder, to watch each moment go by, imagine watching, in front of your very eyes, a little ship, sailing by, your life, in those moments, if you tried to reach and hold them you would miss, no matter how quick, such is time, and life, and water… going by.
(scene-set: in a landscape more purple than grey, no sunset or sunrise, no night, just vague ambient light, just the cover of a dense low blanket fog, each to his own on plots of land that seem planned and measured, not vacant and yet alone, close enough to see each other but not close enough to speak even in sign, so here I resign and reside, I do not know how long I have been – here, I imagine for some time but that imagination is gone.)
So I said to the old man, who’s just my reflection now, but my companion none the less, ‘so I still remain here, drinking the poison water from this poison well, may well I know so well to covet the contents, as if I am tethered’ -his look back is just abject truth, the pure raw-rip simplicity of rhetorical conductivity, dare I? there is no puzzle here, there is no conundrum to concern, no circumstance but my own has slam-shackled my ankle to the rocky doldrums of this dreary-barrenstick of landscape, and I as I rise to stretch, I think I can see the glowing fields of seeming-gleaming Elysium just over the hill there, not so far, so far enough, just as I remember them, I think- I recall, but I continue to dwell, here, losing time ever more, each breath a shutter’s eye closer to shutter, benign in my stymied form, those around, some can not be more than born, even if I do not know for sure their story I can read it, I don’t have such excuse, not ravaged by disease or unforeseen circumstance, no, my abode is my own as is my rotten skin I live down-in, so every day on wake, a circle I make, waves and kisses for the masses and missus, perhaps some days a step further out, some days a step never given, curled in a ball rather comforted in submission, only on occasion does the foul water taste of the true poison I know there lingers, and nurtures this dark vision, the leeching power of intrusion, the why bother of non inclusion – simply the manner of my disillusion, a comfortable situation, here, the useless back and forth with my so-wise inner self, with all the answers but not the mechanisms to get them done- over that hill, where I once was, I can no longer clearly see that self, in mirrors or inside, or in dead photographs, that fade, for is no longer I, like someone else’s dream I was in for a time, perhaps a spell, but I can still somehow feel deep-down the purity of those days, a clean-clear running spring perhaps, even if not perfection in the real an upgrade from this utter-ness, but this is home for now (ever?), until that fire known (forgotten?) once more burns, long enough and hot enough to spurn these old bones to action or ruin, I know, I know in this rust, this ruse, I owe this to those, those who cannot, but more I owe this ticket to the universe for making this plot, for myself, and the life that seems I may have forgot.
flowing, ever flowing a rash-rapids a roiling rage of falls- the slow crawl over a delta; even the ever stoic ocean has her tides her lows, her highs all in succession, and such is time as the two were born at the hip as one force we feel upon our lives we ride, for what other choice do we have or drown but simply one day there is that – or drought.
notes… water… the lifeblood of life, able to carry and destroy… and we see all sorts on our little short carousel ride here…