Raymond Soulard, Jr. New Songs (for Kassandra) - The ...

50
“Yessh mass’r!”
Rebecca bumps into me, purposefully to steal my attention back, hardly difficult at all—
“The power is raised again tonight”
“Yes”
“Fierce & running, perpetual, a ton, a blaze”
“Yes”
“Draw. Paint. Rebecca.”
“I am.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I don’t know.”
“I’m strumming it, making it buzz & hiss.”
“Oh!”
“The kind which does not slow or end”
“Yes”
“That kind”
“That kind”
Power shaped & strummed, power summoned, a velocity, a fugue, eyes with the dance of lit
gems, stroking til savage, suck her, save her, kiss her, keep her.
“See what I mean? Pussy! Where all the great ideas come from—I know what I’m saying!”
Rebecca nods, continues to draw.
“There! Yr ol lady agrees!”
“We all agree, Cecile”
I stop. Relent, a little. “Holy & tattered world, both”
“What else to do but rock out, eh?” sneers Grey. He’s right. Guitar, thighs, acceleration.
Rock out.
Begin in the mystery of what is, what isn’t, what was, scirrocco & silhouette, canyon
& cougar
“Bollocks” growls Grey “Just bollocks”
“A problem, Grey?”
“This is no novel or book! What is it?”
“Long—getting longer”
“Hippy shit—that’s all”
“I suppose so”
“And it’s never going back to what it was”
“Nay, Grey”
His tough blue eyes roam me—”Are you so sure that writing books for a living is so
bad? Writing books that people read?”
“I tried too long ago for it to matter—it’s better this way—”
“Is it?”
The Cenacle | 59 | October 2006