existential leaper

7/28/2019 Existential Leaper

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ExistentialLeaperby Richard Spiegel

1999 BardPressof tenpenny players, inc.393 Saint Pauls Avenue, Staten Island


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Contents

The Other Brother 3

Musings 5Music 11

Sams Sublime Trick 14

I Look 16

drawings by the author

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The Other Brother

And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son,

and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hathappointed me another seed instead of Abel, whomCain slew. Genesis IV:26

Summertime soon dusts our time. My tooth issweet still into its decaying days, though, setto begin my singing this ending song

that knows no ones up for it.With the dew that fogs the morning, childrenwho were never meant to be are herewith us, exalting the mudand the berries of our season..Seth says to the stars, Gather me into

your night. The years of light shall we dividewith only chance by our side.

The dove we grasp is nestled in splinters.Silence is the howl that grows within me:Be not bleak nor Blake, but break out of it.Its the sky song that never stopsthough the voice wearies pregnantwith departure. Leaping the abyss weland in the mud. I told you so you could

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forget it soon as its said. Arisingout the womb, Seth, contemplates the descentand smiles.

On the blank surface sit paperpads, books, spectacles, clay, tissues, cables,computers, a tin in a tall glass. Sethcomes nosing into my words and pacesthe intricate carpet beneath our dust.

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Musings

Are we contained in cardboard boxes?

Prison cells? Bureaucracies that shutus off and turn the locks are stakingpsyche's territory; but we colludetoo easily, taking what we findat hand then brooding over changes.

These bureaus contain momentsof yesterday's crash. Unclockedcomments race with fantasiesand lies along the synapseof knowing, while pretendersto power stay doggedly perched.

What holds the aging errorsof Eros? What frames the delusionsin the East Side galleries?All certainties tumble as fractalsupon the once upon a timeas the telling is tongued.

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Last ThursdayI drove out to Rikers Islandto meet with teachers

students and the principalwho was makingpancakes for the paras.

Island Academyis a prefabricated rectangle,

a warren of classroomsand officeswith a bubblefor the c.o.

Ten years agoinmates were paintingthe walls, preparingfor the new school;now students exhibittheir art in a glass case.

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And that force directing each motionto turn in upon itself withoutopening the self to another's

grasp -- must contend with a counter forceturning on the outside of the actand closing upon the gesture's aim.

Who's held in place beside me,for the moment, will gather

momentum in the currentof speech; each word is ledgeredillegibly vaguelyleading to our redemption.

There are frequent exemptionsflung shivering into the dreadfuluncertain. Memories holdthe times she would dance upon a whim,take pleasure for her comfort,and weep her passage in ecstasy.

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Those whoare expelledfrom their class

or barred entryto their schoolwill still be taught.

After hiding undertables and over-

turning desks, hecame with meto the computer labto tell his story.

Then he wrestledwith hisprinted words;strugglingwith charactersin context.

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With uncertainty I trace your formdissolving into random day dreams,into a tense soft sung turbulence

bleeding through the silent and still touchwhere I lose myself in curves of light,planes of pressure, and the open chord . . .

We play at school studiouslyexamining reflections

that disperse and reassemble,shimmering mirroringsafloat in whirlpools, rapids,vortices, calms, and eddies.

Your city, with her sorrowsin hiding like fugitive loverswho look out soot paned windowson ambiguous grey stained courtyardsabiding lost years' secrets,borrows solace from urban jug bands.

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That painting - I've half hiddenwith books, cassettes, head phones,and electric boxes -

uneasily speaksin yellows and greensof burdened rectangles and bold black lines.

Working in acryllics, she oncepainted - on the bathtub in the kitchen

of the railroad apartmentwe sublet on East Fifth Streetnear Avenue A - flower childrendancing to the mute porcelain pulse.

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Music

In primitive times when man awakes in a world

that is newly created, poetry awakes with him. Inthe face of the marvelous things that dazzle andintoxicate him, his first speech is a hymn simply.He is still so close to God that all his meditationsare ecstatic, all his dreams are visions. His bosomswells, he sings as he breathes.--- Victor Hugo, Preface to Cromwell (1827)

When the ear first heard silence embeddedin sound, song stirred cradles of consciousness.

Nathan, from Ratchonz, closed his plumbers storein Williamsburg and opened an ice cream

parlor in Bridgeport, where the pianoplayed itself for a nickel, and sometimesBelle accompanied Charles on violin.Morris worked in an antenna factorysurrounded by static.

Minds imagine vibration.Children at the Met play toy recorders.

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Martin, from Herricks, strummed his guitar butdid not join the band where Clifford bit on

the reed of his tenor sax dreaming ofjazz clubs. At the Eastman School, John spreadhis fingers across the keyboard.

Heartbeatsaudibly accompany a constant

drumming pumping life into streets.

Beforebreakfast students sang, Dank U fr dieseneuve morgen, and at night in the churchcellar Mary played on her autoharp.Tuesday afternoon Gertrude spoke of versewhile Roni dreamt words that danced on her tongue.

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Sams Sublime Trick

At home watery shadows

splashed across carpeted floors.A bamboo curtain separatedthe living room from the bedroom.His father smoked cigars.His mother fed him definitions.He flowed. His teachers spoke in

spiked statements with ginger breath.He weighed aspirations frommoment to year and pastthe walls round clock. He leaped overchasms and oceans. He navigatednights and sailed the seasons surface.

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I look

What? you ask. I dont say a thing, a silent

language operates unconscious. My tonguestays a part of me; the hermit in my mouth.I type words apart from the world: mere words.The more I am here all are here with me.Are you with me? There you sit now in that chairand here I sit in this chair. Is your response,

more conscious than mine, less wanting? Youreconscious

of many things that I am not. You siton your chair and wonder. I move the words near

you.

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