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

54
The power still awakes within my pen, still ready to make or maraud—less a pistol
than a bullet—
a bomb—a breach—
the power raised—be wary—
Power raised a rising sheet of water at night’s apex—a verity of musics, a clash &
coalescence of myths—
Where now? If the dimensions of possibility are seemingly numberless what to do?
& how? & why?
“Why?” I ask her.
She nods.
“What music to share tonight, Rebecca?”
“All of it” she says—
I nod—
“No other way, Ray” she smiles—watches me scribble for my life—as always—
knows I write to love—write to know—write to live—
“My music has been torrent & tepid for so long”
“But still you try”
“I have no choice”
“No—none of us do”
Americus sits in the bandroom listening to a group of musical young flow into &
away from coherence—knows they worship playing at Luna T’s—how it drives them—how
it impedes them—sits at his little table beneath the front window & listens, sips his pint of
Guinness—
Cecile Grey mulls a broken-spined paperback of Aldous Huxley’s Doors of
Perception—sitting in his room at the local YMCA—reads, thinks, taps out a rhythm with his
left hand—chews some cheese slowly, reads:
“That was the problem—to remain undistracted. Undistracted by the memory of
past sins, by imagined pleasure, by the bitter aftertaste of old wrongs and humiliations, by all
the fears and hate and cravings that ordinarily eclipse the light. What those Buddhist monks
did for the dying and the dead, might not the modern psychiatrist do for the insane? Let
there be a voice to assure them, by day and even while they are asleep, that in spite of all the
terror, all the bewilderment and confusion, the ultimate Reality remains unshakeably itself
and is of the same substance as the inner light of even the most cruelly tormented mind.”
What music to share tonight? What colors to eat? What voices to dance? Memories
to burn? Gurus to plunder? Mysteries to worship?
What phreaks to follow tomorrow? What scriptures to crush under boots?
Which love to win anew? Which loyalty to release?
The Cenacle | 59 | October 2006