Robin Ouzman, Sara L Russell, Helga Ross, Michael Burch

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The Perils of Norris Page 6 (Current adventure)

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THE HERMIT & THE HANGMAN c. Robin Ouzman Hislop THE HERMIT i should have died yesterday, when was that, before let us say, when tomorrow finally came. i was sent down known ends. i was an open book. i was read between the lines, an open secret, kept as a personal treasure. comforts for before & after. a face, as innocent as the tabla- rasa sky when i was young, before age in its quest with time to find the invincible archetype transformed me to these ruins. but are not ruins shrines we worship at even in our most distant dreams, no welcome only air to eat. THE HANGMAN i muffle me against their pleas, mine's not a greedy hand, cold eyes i serve on plates. i hand them their bodies & ask of them nothing in return. i have the blood of innocence, on my hands through no fault of my own. i am what i am but you too would see me hang- hermit man. THE HERMIT after they had taken everything from me they began with the intention of giving it little by little back again. naked as i was, i spotted their game & so attained condemnation, by accident i laughed outright & was straightway sent to you. known ends, they play by the rules, as you do too but with a noose. THE HANGMAN The matador must slay the bull, but how could i the minotaur, that was my doom, my exile, i put out my eyes & only felt the jerk of lumpen death in my hand, as a fisherman might fly a fish in the rapids but then the connection snapped. THE HERMIT i knew when i got to the cross roads all hope of escape was defeated. i’d been sent with that message & although nobody was there, they may as well as have been waiting. it was the same, i knew their satisfaction, everything was as expected & nothing more was expected of me, they were predictable, like you with your noose & your tale. THE HANGMAN stop, i say stop, i am stop, that is the secret & the power of the noose, it tautens & lets go & that's death at the hand, as commanded, as handed down, my role, my prerogative. THE HERMIT because you will never be truly alone, you will never find the living. it is a riddle that binds you, as you bind yourself to death but not the dead. that is the difference, that is why i am here & you there. each way is decreed, we have made it so, we have failed to become invincible. THE HANGMAN that's the warp & woof of it. it's the the chicken & the egg, who got here first & what are we waiting for, but there are no exits only getting on & off at arrivals. meetings that are records & reference to records, we never leave our ruins, they are our homage, our destiny. they are both of us beyond reach, that's why i'm a man with a noose, ready to fall because i cannot be erased. THE HERMIT line after line, they have made me, even my loneliness & left me not even nothingness.

THE MUSIC OF BELIAL c. Sara L. Russell Wild-eyed at the piano, he wants to spin her a line, but the Muse has flown out the window and he's running out of wine. The candles are burning lower, sweat runs down his face, the tempo's going slower, time is giving up the chase. If the music could only embody her graceful, lovely shape, but the arpeggios sound shoddy and the chords begin to scrape - how can all this chaos bring a tear to her blue eyes? He's not Wolfgang Amadeus and only the barn owl cries. Suddenly, his fingers are playing on their own, playing out an air that lingers and chills him to the bone, spindly notes that run like spiders at the high end of the scale, like dark fears we hold inside us like a lashing scorpion's tail... He grows weak, the notes go deeper as the melody grows strong, familiar now, to this light sleeper, it's a fugue, a nightmare song, a precursor of disaster to invert the sweetest dream - his heart is beating faster, but he cannot rise or scream and the fugue is plunging Hell-bound to the deepest, darkest dirge, the dark fireplace holds him spellbound, something's waiting to emerge out from the deadly darkness where the flames have died away, into the room's cold starkness and still his fingers play and the evil music's winning there's a thumping on the door, the candelabra's spinning, the fireplace, a gaping maw, spews out soot and ashes like a mist with teeth and eyes, the music pounds and crashes and the mist begins to rise... ...Now the music is receding as he wakes up in his bed but his fingertips are bleeding and the fugue is in his head and the wardrobe door is swinging slowly open, on its own, his tortured ears are ringing, he is frightened and alone and the black mist is encroaching on the borders of his soul, a distorted face is approaching, it's mouth a shrivelled hole, it's a fear to put a name to as the face gives a mirthless smile: "I have come to claim you through the Music of Belial!" Touching Base: A Sales Exec Sonnet by Sara L. Russell.   A nano-second window has arrived To leave me time for touching base with you; It's dog-eat-dog, yet our puppy survived - We thought outside the box, and simply grew.   We're so different yet basically the same, We can anticipate the market's needs; To levitate to top dog in your game Out-smart the opposition till it bleeds.   I'll text you vis-a-vis the status quo, We'll throw some ball park figures in the air; Let's keep it strictly on a need-to-know, We'll have it all, with plenty more to spare.   So hold that thought, until I've sorted things; It's not over till the fat lady sings.


Click play on the box below to hear the music that goes with this poem.

SOLICITATION He comes to me out of the shadows, acknowledging my presence with the tip of his hat, always the gentleman, and his eyes are on my eyes like a snake’s on a bird’s– quizzical, mesmerizing. He cocks his head as though something he heard intrigues him though I hear nothing, and he smiles, amusing himself at my expense, and his words are full of desire and loathing, and though I hear, he says nothing that I understand. The moon shines–maniacal, queer–as he takes my hand and says our time has come . . . and so we stroll together along the docks where the sea sends things that wriggle and crawl scurrying under rocks and boards. Moonlight in great floods washes his pale face as he stares unseeing into my eyes. He sighs, and the sound crawls slithering down my spine, and my blood seems to pause at his touch as he caresses my face. He unfastens my dress till the white lace shows, and my neck is bared. His teeth are long, yellow and hard. His face is bearded and haggard. A wolf howls in the distance. There are no wolves in New York. I gasp. My blood is a trickle his wet tongue embraces. My heart races madly. He likes it like that. Like Angels, Winged Like angels–winged, shimmering, misunderstood– they flit beyond our understanding being neither evil, nor good. They are as they are . . . and we are their lovers, their prey; they seek us out when the moon is full; they dream of us by day. Their eyes–hypnotic, alluring– trap ours with their strange appeal; drawn like moths to their flame, we gather . . . to see, to touch, to feel. And in their arms, enchanted, we feel their lips of old, and with their gorging kisses– we warm them, growing cold. White Goddess White in the shadows I see your face, unbidden. Go, tell Love it is commonplace; Tell Regret it is not so rare. Our love is not here though you smile, full of sedulous grace. Lost in darkness, I fear the past is a dangerous place. In the Whispering Night ––for George King In the whispering night, when the stars bend low till the hills ignite to a shining flame, when a shower of meteors streaks the sky, and the lilies sigh in their beds, in pain, we must steal our souls, as they once were stolen, and gather our vigor, and all our intent. We must heave our bodies to some wild ocean and laugh as they shatter, and never repent. We must dance in the darkness as stars dance before us, soar, Soar! through the night on a butterfly's breeze: flung high, upward-yearning, twin spirits returning to the world of resplendence from which we were seized.

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The Stark Season (Spenserian Sonnet) c. Helga Ross Yea, I have looked, and seen November there; The changeless seal of change it seemed to be, Fair death of things that, living once, were fair; Bright sign of loneliness too great for me, Strange image of the dread eternity, In whose void patience how can these have part, These outstretched feverish hands, this restless heart? ~ William Morris, November The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky. ~ Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1855, I Celebrate Myself, Line 238 The sun slides through blue sky blinding its light, rose-staining the horizon’s stark season; changing my mind now that I have the right; the aim’s the same, the route’s but whim’s reason. Once it was daytime, free time, would tease one trapped in survival routines, lifestyle schemes, treadmill time—severed—the life I seize on, seeking textures in demidark extremes. Days, bright and gray, weave this chapter’s new themes; fly faster but I feel them, ride their speed. Each weighs in its way fulfillment’s regimes: I drive me, turn my coupe to heed my need; to live my dreams, the fall I’ve slaved to see; to hunt and game for the poet in me. UNBLOCKED "Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing." ~ Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910), American author Writer’s block’s a statue we must chisel painstakingly when painterly won’t flow; when the pattern blots and the thoughts fizzle; canvas is stone slow to yield what to show. Mood is the clay to transmute paper weight. What is it we must speak of you need know? Distinguish in form the heavy we hate; shallow efforts leave us fakes when we go. So, to the child-men who abuse children, then; use rape as a weapon, sex as a war; who talk tortures and prison cells playpen; who toy with nuclear shell games once more. Graven of the move of moral plumb line, I decry whom I grapple to define… In Between Time A fine day for a walk along the edge of autumn… Wear your flannel and bring the dog. The common’s still green. Collages of colors fan the feelings, paint the sounds crisp. Maybe…kiss me under the trees in the chocolate shadows beneath a canopy’s butternut leaves, where no one but you sees the flush…as flamboyant as red maples; sends the shivers…some ripple and fall. If you like…lovely backlight, the path by the lake. Overcast, the cool’s just warm enough we can take the wind, watch the whitecaps whip, lap-over-lap, the blue-gray watercolor wash and crash ashore. Let the dog run loose and chase the geese, till he comes back, he will…if you will dare. Maybe…while we wait we’ll crack the silence And each confess we care… Goodbye, My Love! How can you mend a broken heart? How can you stop the rain from falling down? How can you stop the sun from shining? What makes the world go round? ~ Bee Gees He said, "I have to find myself." She said, "Fine, I’ll help you pack." – "I like that you love me BUT" – "Fine, I take it back.." – Not a shred of feelings left except to rise above: A rewrite of the too trite one-act play, father, mother, their daughter’s drama coach, prefers the jilted ingenue portray. Screen Test: Her Heartbreak Triumph, first approach. Tragedy's the forte of seasoned actors, the romantic’s hardest role misassigned of charisma, fickle-casting factors: molds character; the method is unkind. A script, a stretch, a pinnacle afar: They pray, daren’t insist: Oscar for a Star!   copyright © Helga Ross, 2006