The Woman Behind The Dream: Chopin and the Timeless Tuning

“Because perhaps to my misery, I already have my perfect one whom I have without saying a word, served faithfully for a year now. Of whom I dream and in whose memory the adagio of my concerto has been written.” Chopin, The Women Behind the Music

In the memory of such early genius as Chopin, our cultural continuity glorifies bygone eras with a creative resurgence only known to Western opulence. And looking out from the window of one's own, the sparks of desire light. At first, softly, the Earth burns. Then, the air plumes in a haze of smoke. The bonfire of magic absolves the moon of its light, and the stars become mere smoky display. Inside, and from underneath, the imagination fires the kindling of co-unity with the mind.

___________

And in such as a bout of unspent night, where slumber is deep and each morning fresh, I woke into dream. The longing test of emotive fire, the blinding seed of passion instilled. To work, and to find solace in worldly accomplishment deceived! The wakeful night spun an inglorious frost, a loosened hold on the sunless firmament. 

The Night with the Genii of Study and Love by Pedro Américo

A summit revealed the greatest of depths as the wounded sky bled rain and ice, brewing over the darkening clouds. We traversed impossible concave stone, sharp as a split mirror, the ice moved our flesh towards the brink. In a vivid flash, I saw memory itself, bear unto the apex of Earth. The stars crowned the lonely top as we gazed into our battered arms with hands of ice and stone. 

Storm in the Mountains by Albert Bierstadt

From the greatest of heights, the shadow of a man fell to die. Scattered in the colourless flush of snow, the piercing rock dashed all hope. Still, with chests full of heart, we climbed on and to the frozen prison. Alone, I emptied my eyes and climbed the last step. The day sped past in a hearse, as a vision of unity stung my heart with its sole truth: alone with the Alone. 

____________

To close the album, "Evocations: district.Columbia" the track, "Untrained Timeless Tuning" consists of improvisations on piano (keyboard) and xaphoon (bamboo sax). The age-old American sound of piano and woodwind hearkens to the unique sonic fusion that is completely unique and characteristic of the country. Especially in the use of a certain type of improvisation, the classic sounds evince an internal discovery of not only the human soul, but the soul of the land known to Americans as home.

In such a time as today, when war after war knocks at our doorstep, we can be reminded of the cultural heritage that more prominently identifies us as a unified people: music, the one common language of humanity. So, the sound is masked with electronic innovation into the 21st century, where the piano sound is a controller, and the woodwind is a recent invention. The first xaphoon was made only forty years ago on the island of Hawaii.

Further, the title, "Untrained Timeless Tuning" speaks to that harmony that is basic to all regardless of class, education, ethnicity or religious identification. There is a way to shared harmony, and it emerges through a music untrained by the classism and privilege of modern higher education. Whether speech, or instrumentation, the music that is untrained, while in tune with the essence of human life as pain, raw and blunt, is the very timelessness that high art seeks to capture. That timelessness is bred in every interaction and exchange whether within or between us always.

When we speak of Re-Writing our STORY, as in the chapbook wherein this piece is written, this very realization is the voice that carries our experience to such wonderful stretches of the imagination; present and transformational. So, the traditional keyboard and woodwind sound is transformed into an electronic movement of triumph in contemporary sound creativity.  

The following six-poem chapbook, Re-Writing our STORY, is the final series of works from the district.Columbia collection. The pieces reflect the penultimate phase of true revolution as a spiritual transformation of one's narrative. That is, one re-imagines their perspective through a revolutionary act of storytelling. This kind of storytelling reflects personal truths, daily experiences and common points of view with regard to the larger narratives and mythologies that consume unknowing minds through belief, propaganda and pride. The feature piece, Untrained Timeless Tuning, was published with Poydras Review in August of 2012.

Re-Writing Our STORY

Fear: Spoken Word of a Female Prisoner

"...the fear of prisons

The fear of strip searches leads to 

The fear of being naked in front of other women 

The fear of keys leads to

The fear of chains

The fear of small spaces it leads to

The fear of tears, the fear of dreams, the fear of loneliness

The fear of being forgotten, it leads to 

The fear of time, the fear of lies

The fear of metal doors leads to

The fear of dark empty corridors 

The fear of insanity leads to

The fear of separation, the fear of isolation, the fear of segregation, the fear of being a statistic." 

Spoken by a female prisoner at the final minute of short film, "Beautiful Sentence" 

Not until I wrote this did I understand the double meaning in the title...sentence. What phenomenal beauty there is in the regeneration of oral storytelling through writing. That is my key literary focus this past year, as I reflect on my greater literary ambitions. As I re-watch this humble documentary on an oft-recurring subject, the impact of poetry on prisoners, I think about the unique predicament I'm in this year, in relation to the subject of the above-quoted poem. I won't be departing or arriving in airports this holiday season. I'm staying far away. Although I am not incarcerated, I can feel the fear that this prisoner speaks of in her poem on the blatantly unjust quality of airports, and remain ever thankful that I have the option, and freedom, to not pass through, at least for now. 

_________

In light of not remembering the narrative arc of any dreams as of late, I am posting original photography from my waking life in relation to the initial topic instead of spontaneous prose and historical art

Crashland America by Rusty Kjarvik

Skeletal Cockpit by Rusty Kjarvik

No School by Rusty Kjarvik

Crash from the High Plains by Rusty Kjarvik

God-Awful Rhinoplasty by Rusty Kjarvik

__________

"An epic
of intention,
a bruised nation
and the stir-crazy polity,
struggling
with the sad gift
of only one humanity

a shipwreck beauty,
gleaming with the light of the ancients
over star-crossed paths
circulating through the veins
of an unbroken galaxial unity

evolving beyond one heartbeat to the infinite
blending of colorful awe
in the transitional being’s destiny
as wormhole wanderer
...

neck-tipped wheels edging naively on the backs of extinction,
Buffalo Confederacy of the western mage
playing tricks on white society beneath a rainbow cloak,
bundling rain and the boom of truth in our drum’s not-forgotten flower mask, straying now from pleasure and hate
in the unborn seat of quiet yearning

with English tongues of grotesque neighborly wick,
suffocated and pouring
over the tea-stained talk of elder medicine
healing beyond death
...

'knowledge in space,
as verbal structure,
passes beyond inert caution
to a stimulated dream-law,
intelligent yet nude'"

excerpts from "Epic of Intention"

Succubus, Temptress of Mystic Remembrance

Lilith by John Collier

"In folklore...a succubus (plural succubi) is a female demon or supernatural being appearing in dreams, who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. The male counterpart is the incubus. Religious traditions hold that repeated intercourse with a succubus may result in the deterioration of health or even death." Wikipedia

In Hebrew and Arabic mysticism, the figure exhibited above, of Lilith, is the central character for mythic remembrance of the succubus folklore, where she is a source of domestic superstition and the root of cosmic evil. Read more from the Jewish Women's Archive.

________

Low-lying jungles emerge only steps from the sea wall. As I enter through the darkening canopy my footprints sink deeper into the unsure ground of dying vegetation. I see a man and woman walk assuredly in Muslim dress. 

Muslim shawl-makers, Kashmir 1867 by William Simpson

This is Mother India, though I feel I am trespassing, at the dangerous edge, where two worlds have collapsed side by side. At seeing their weary countenances, their grimacing jaunts, I recoil nearer to the seaside, where the forest is less thick and try a new entry point. Again, wandering through the sweep of jungle, my mind presses onward with increasingly bleary sight as the landscape closes in and my sight nears my eyes, confronting the formidability of a climaxed rainforest. 

Lovers shoot at a tiger in the jungle.
 Illustration to the mystical Sufi text Madhumalati by Meister des Madhu-Malati-Manuskripts

As I enter through a clearing, I see a young woman, a Punjabi Sikh. She welcomes kindly, and warns me of the dangers ahead, though she reminds me that as long as I travel through the lands of her people, the Sikhs, I will be safe. 

Portrait of Rani Jind Kaur aka Jindan by George Richmond

I wander on, enlightened by the meeting with such a kind and endearing sprite. Increasingly entangled in the impenetrable bush, I come to a massive tree. Immediately, I begin climbing to gain a vantage point. The limbs are smooth and strong, a true jungle arbor. As I feel for a lookout, the branches stretch me inwards, and I rest on a limb as thick as my body, crawling toward a knot of branches creating a homely stand, a shaded hollow within the body of the tree. As I press on amid the enwrapping arms of the humungous tree, a woody formation beckons with the same quality as my bedroom. 

Abu'l Hasan and Mansur Squirrels in a Plane Tree by Abu'l Hasan and Mansur

Again, I wake, remembering the seaside cliffs beyond the jungle’s edge, the grandiose rocks, welcoming my step, as I notice two women of different religious custom playing, bounding from rock to rock with amiable laughter and sisterly freedom, I begin sketching in primary colors and rough lines, with an innocent beauty, and gravity enough to keep my word.   

_________

Where does the apple fall?
From a rootless tree?
A groundless source?

- excerpt from "My Name"

Phillis Wheatley, Awakened Mother of the Free Word

Phillis Wheatley by Unknown

Say what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange!

When action ceases, and ideas range
Licentious and unbounded o'er the plains,
Where Fancy's queen in giddy triumph reigns.

Hear in soft strains the dreaming lover sigh
To a kind fair, or rave in jealousy;
On pleasure now, and now on vengeance bent,
The lab'ring passions struggle for a vent.

What pow'r, O man! thy reason then restores,
So long suspended in nocturnal hours?

What secret hand returns the mental train,
And gives improv'd thine active pow'rs again?

From thee, O man, what gratitude should rise!

And, when from balmy sleep thou op'st thine eyes,
Let thy first thoughts be praises to the skies.

Excerpt from "Thoughts on the WORKS of PROVIDENCE." by Phillis Wheatley (Source)

Phillis Wheatley: "the first African-American poet, and the first African-American woman to publish her writing." (Wikipedia). Watch a great reading of one of my favourites, "Hymn to the Evening."

________

The grasses spell warm delightful, cracked insect green coloration, the chalky incompleteness in the waving eye of nature stares back with full recognition, restitution with human presence. Eagerly, I walk through the high rushes, stung with the tail end of a long forgetful period of mourning. The air fills my nostrils with intense humidity. An overwhelming lushness gravitates towards my brain. All the follicles from the plant world betray my unaware scents with awakening need. Aromatic, I speed through the vibrant, near-neon lime-green touches and find my way to a log cabin under the gorgeous density of a well-pollinated atmosphere, bred for the mind’s eye to pierce through to planetary secrets untold. 

Penniless, I am a drifter of smiles, a careless frame, basking in the gathering of those my age. Who do I see? I am at a loss. 

My mother! Young in her prime, she takes pity on my beleaguered state, handing me a Canadian ten-dollar bill in front of a lunch stand. The light mountain air feeds our intoxicated bliss with an embracing strength unknown in normal life, there is a silent energy about, allowing us to traverse the freedoms abreast in this long-sought after hollow of meadow and cloudless rays. I brim over with gladness, alive at once, with my friend and mother. Holding her in the sunshine womb of celestial pride, we walk through the silky meadow, renewed. Attaining the final vision, before the gully drops off the edge of a nearby cliff, I turn around and follow the nightly smoke of fellow friends, preparing for parties in the aftermath of youth, meanwhile, my mother stays behind, patiently awaiting my return, at the precipice of subterranean mystery.

_______

Mother

"The general image of 'mother' in a dream may symbolize a variety of feelings and ideas: caring, nurturing, love, acceptance, hard work, sacrifice, martyrdom, etc. The mother in your dream could also represent the 'collective unconscious,' the source of the 'water of life,' and the yin. Carl Jung suggests that women in dreams represent the collective unconscious and men the collective consciousness. Thus, the woman is that force, or current, inside of you that nudges you on and inspires you. It is your intuition and knowledge that is not necessarily attached to words."(iDream)

_______

in the deep silent tragic night,
blizzard disarray and the electric blankness
recedes throughout our psychic presence

with ethereal dismay,
morbid as the desert solitaire,
of rose-laden heights

excerpt from "interpretive direction"

The Archaic Rape of Earthly Society

"Society is designed so people are free to choose their own interests, develop formerly hidden potential, and pursue dreams without government intervention or financial constraint." (p. 78)

- Final sentence (before the conclusion) in Jacque Fresco's book, "Designing the Future" of The Venus Project

_______

I can see the eye of the storm. The massive plain tumbles and writhes under the violent sky. Winds frost and spit with ferocity over the engulfed earth. With dramatic sweeps, I gesture into the monstrous movement, the land hurricane slows with animated motion with my every beckoning.

In a torrent, I glide effortlessly directly into the eye of the storm. Debris swirls about at lightning speeds, coins engraved with headdress-adorned figures move into my vision with holographic reality.

In a misdirected bout of blind seizing into the frothy gusts, I grab onto a globular orb. A living replica of Earth, the orb is with piercing light, vibrant with enduring mystery. As I begin to recognize continental form within the orb, gazing with absolute absorption, the storm subsides overhead.

I am safe, overlooking a ruined high plain fever of ancient life. Aztec, Mayan and African features bedeck a man and his two women-wives. There is a striking, volatile cruelty in the air; survivors of the apocalyptic storm are moved to a traumatic escalation of end rites. The man is fully armed and adorned in ceremonial dress. He forces one woman to dig in the mud.

As I observe, I feel a heavy weight around my neck. I look down at my breast to find a brilliant necklace, of thick girth, bejeweled with precious, exotic stone, around my neck. The woman, bent over, with bottom up, is penetrated violently by the man, thumping into her so hard that blood streaks down her thighs. She continues to dig at his command, while she is raped.

In horror, no one notices I am present, watching the stubborn abuse, shocked. The man grabs her vagina as he continues to penetrate her, wiping his face in the putrid blood. “This will make me young again! Whore!” he yells in wild abandon.

As the hole she’s dug becomes large enough for her to sit in, he pushes her, laughingly in the subsurface mud. Other men walk over, sick with tortured minds, they lower their loin cloths and ejaculate into the mud pit, as more and more men fill the woman’s pit, others pour in creamy goat’s milk.

The lady, neck-high in the lowering goop, cries in terror, her psychotic eye gleans a ghastly stare into my eyes. She’s the only one who notices my innocent presence. The other lady then climbs atop her head, naked from the waist down; she begins menstruating a gorge of blood into the pit.

Speechless, I race forward with the orb in hand, and leap over the menstruating woman on top, stabbing her in the back. Impaled, the woman immediately becomes a skeleton. All the others follow, becoming the shallow dust of incinerated, skeletal remains. The orb transforms from its metal shaft, on top a gold coin forms.

The entire ritual site is then swept in the height of the storm once more, as I look into the engraving on the gold coin topping the orb, swirls of coins and debris, with feathery headdresses and ancient icons flash and flicker in the fading mud of ground, disappearing below me. 

_______

Rape

"In a dream, as in real life, rape has very little to do with sex. It is about power, control, anger, and other very destructive emotions. In order to understand this dream, you may need to think about the areas of your life that causes you great anxiety and fear. If you are superstitious, take this dream as a warning. Take precautions, protect yourself emotionally and physically and don't engage in careless behaviours. A dream about rape (whether it was you or someone else being attacked in the dream) suggests that you are feeling violated in some way. Something or someone is jeopardizing your self-esteem and emotional well-being." (iDream)

_______

once travel to a foreign country becomes reminiscent of that
one too-many,
that last girl
before profound commitment
to feminine and masculine union

in the outer-penetrated world,
that person must begin anew to create novels;
i.e. the moment's performance in novelty

a historic moment, the duration of time itself,
temporal currency formed and formless together,
emboldening our hands

sweet as the dreaming, unborn child,
in mother's prophetic womb

lit with raw desire
to fill the inward sky with primordial flight
bringing life to a boiling gamble

...

smoothed over with aged, colonial bureaucracy
craving selfless deserts
to be in solace,
yet drained with inhuman night

an eclipse spans this biblical day
cast over a rude Mesoamerican eye

...

a near-rape
whose victimized lover embodied human love
with the animalistic need to survive,

and the virgin blood
glutted in cults

alive with a supernal darkness
unto depths that thrive on the breast milk of Mother Earth's deeply passed esophagus
drawing aphrodisiac urges

to thrill onlooker's gods with human creation,
flooding the universe
as lactations' milk warms the needful infant's belly
still dripping from the inner womb
flowing with primordial goo,
their warmth is the bed in which we feel unprotected

sex

losing grain
as the foreigner's sites are exhausted before the eternal Altar,
whispering "Create!"

- excerpts from "travel to a foreign country" 

Undocumented Dreamers Blaze a New Trail

"I'm tired of seeing students criminalized for wanting to obtain an education. I'm tired of seeing students lose hope because they can not realize their dreams of living freely in this country."

- Maria Marroquin

"Every dream that I ever had as a journalist was coming true and I couldn't go to Mexico to a friend's wedding, I still couldn't...the lies just kept getting bigger and watching United We Dream and watching these, actually these four activists from Miami walk from Miami to Washington D.C. to fight for the DREAM Act, the Trail of Dreams, I felt like a coward, I felt accountable..."

Jose Antonio Vargas from Democracy Now! 

_______

Rummaging through childhood lairs, dusty basement keeps where in storage lay our ancestral feet. Our rummaging, nonplussed, we savored with every object greeted, music emanated as a voice from our sated finds. Plastic frames and silly hopes spoke with sheer brevity and noisemaking jolly. A working elder passes through unseen, behind our backs, provoking us to the drear of day in this predawn nostalgic sanctity.

“Keep your hands on the wheel!” the car steals across a merging lane, whiplashed and painstaking amid the gyrating fleet of normalcy. The driver fingers marijuana puffery, blind with musical havoc. I steam and vent with toxic remorse as we pass a humongous van filled with Mexicans, seized by the police. We are the true criminals.

_______

Marijuana

"As a symbol it stands for any activity that is not within the bounds of the law and it can denote the fact of not being able to think clearly if you dream you are smoking it, and this could cause you much trouble and stress. As an herb, it has curative powers, and for the older generation of dreamers who still think of this as an herb, this is a warning to have your health seen by a professional. If you have a dream of using marijuana, it suggests you have feelings of insecurity and regret. You worry that people will discover who you really are."

_______

the pregnant are disallowed entry,
to become second-class citizens
among the walking tits
and ass mockery that defiles our greater human
bond and friendship with abusive division
over the object-desire complex
parading as a public wildfire

- excerpt from "international women" 

In Our Colors and Dreams We Are All Daughters of the Sun

Belghies

"How did you learn to weave so well?"

Aman/Amanagol

"I've been sitting behind the loom since I was a kid. My mom is a good weave. She weaves rugs, you see in a dream."

Belghies

"I don't dream of rugs. I had a dream about you a few nights ago. You were flying with a lot of birds. I shouted, "come down." But you didn't pay attention. Suddenly, I was as on top of a hill. There was a wedding down there. It was a beautiful wedding. I ran towards the bride and groom. Then I saw you. You were sitting under a tree. There were birds all around you. I ran towards you. Then I just woke up."

- from "Daughters of the Sun" an Iranian film by Maryam Shahriar

___________

A few friends and I cut through the wild coastal thicket. We are scrappy ruffians and troublemakers, lifting the unmarked passageway with careless abandon through brier patch and horizontal woodland vines. A walk through the forest such as this spells mischief. We come to a house and trespass eagerly. After entering the house and snooping about, the residents return home. It is a Chinese family, home from a dinner in well-dressed attire. We scram and they barely notice without taking much heed to our presence. My friends turn back afraid of any more close calls. I wander off, aimless into the unending chaotic web of brush. 

Years later, I exit a farmer’s market with a girlfriend. Our friend, an East Indian man picks us up in an SUV. As we drive along, he manages to pick up another friend, East Indian as well. Getting seated in the car, he passes snacks through the car and then makes an incredibly demeaning, however unintentional comment towards the girl in the car. We are all stricken with disappointment, as he quickly corrects himself. After an uncomfortable silence, he is let off out from the car earlier than expected. On the side of the highway, he stares at me bitterly and says, “When you look in its eye, ask yourself, do you see a snake?” 

The last image of the dream, in a split second, a painting appears, gold painted with foam matting, a white stripe cuts vertically and pushes across horizontally at about the middle of the painting, on the other side of the stripe is a deep, patchy red, each with a bright yellow capsule shape embedded into the color plates. 

__________

Forest
"Dreaming of a forest signifies a feeling of being lost or confused. You are having difficulty finding a solution for a situation or problem and do not know how to conquer it." 

Serpent

"A powerful dream symbol associated with feminine energy, healing and spirituality...In the long run the snake may be a positive symbol, it may represent difficulties that lead us to the center of personality and result in feelings of completeness." 

(iDream)

________

gasp.

and no more 

in the walk 

to ultimate freedom 

awaiting 

pleasant as her dream 

beckoning 

the wall 

to no more, 

no more 

destind failure or washd up foolish hunger

“and where was our lost flesh sent to? 

to what mind do we owe the greatest thanks and hate”

- excerpt from "complete erase."

Arts Mediocrity in a World of Change

Muse on Pegasus by Odilon Redon

"Rejoice in this: Seeds of futurity require the darkness within soil to dream."

Source: Nation of Change

_______

She attends a Sikh dance ceremony. Ladies in elaborate jewelry and glorious headdresses dance to an electro-pop Banghra. Three ladies stick out, as they wear differentiating clothing. One is fully covered, from head to toe in black, another appears only through the eyes, and yet another wears a colorful headscarf. This is unusual, as the Sikh women would not be known to wear Islamic hijab or burka coverings. To her, they seem as transformer figures.  

I am in a field that at once changes into a warehouse meant for music rehearsals. Standing across from a legendary local musician, a classical percussionist and kit drummer, he asks me to play drums. “Every American kid must have banged on a drumset, eh?” he asks. To which I respond, “Actually, my brother used to play all day long, I’d only listen. Now he’s graduated from Berklee!” “How do you think he did there” again, he interrogates softly. My mother appears as from nowhere, “He was kind of depressed, so he didn’t do as well as he wished.” My shape-shifting surroundings turn from warehouse to field, as I sit to a small drumset of snare, high-hat and ride, only when I sit down, the snare inches away, and the two cymbals spread far apart. I look down, and all I have for sticks are pieces of asparagus and cilantro, and thin pieces of balsa wood. I try to use this delicate craft wood and these flimsy vegetables, and the musician and teacher begins walking away. He looks at me, trying to navigate this moving drumset in an open field and simply tells me a story of decadence in New York, about a lesbian soiree that he once hosted at his house after a celebrity gig of some kind. 

________

with a most subtle whisper

behind a fantastic passion

eager to express unity

with perfect awe in a world that dreams

Up, a new way to be

for the moment

and its own living mystery,

questioning

“what is before?”

- excerpt from "all rivers have one source"

Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women over Black Coffee

Color Drawing by Anonymous (collected as Tsimshian Art)

Interview with Ojibwe Poet David Groulx by Black Coffee Poet

“I remember as a kid, dreaming about a poem. There was a huge hand coming out of the clouds writing on a scroll, a poem about an aboriginal man, man it was the most beautiful poem I’ve ever read, I was reading it as this hand from the clouds was writing it and a voice from behind me told me to get up and write it down, I said I would do it later as I wanted to finish reading it and I couldn’t remember a word of it by morning, maybe I’ve been looking in my mind for that poem ever since.”

_________

I have a deep yearning to visit the office of a highway connected to the missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. I am outraged, yet powerless without any direct contact with the victims or their communities. I am not local, yet I find an office which oversees one of the most afflicted highways. I walk in, and am immediately distracted by an environment of mundane administrative and bureaucratic office work. I wait among a few chairs, deeply incensed by the seeming apathy. There is no information or any immediate signs which would point to the atrocities being committed under their watch. I am called up. The two office workers appear as under a guise of extreme passivity and banal normalcy. My presence is reacted to with equal monotony. They review maps of the highway layout with me, and yet their striking imbecility leads me breathless with an introverted silence. I leave disappointed with myself.  

For creative sources on social justice and arts activism dedicated to the missing and murdered Aboriginal women of Canada, start with More of Black Coffee Poet 

_________

"to the foreign drum of an impenetrable toxicity

left unconsumed and needed by feet

lit under concrete sustained magic

of the urban disillusioned,

northern mind

bringing the steady rings of a consciousness

prepared as the instrument of a government culture

performing the theatrical stronghold of minority no-release

fish-burdened town of extracted marrow

through procedural temperaments

that go unled and steam up

with chaotic strictures

that demean the meaning

of man and woman

or masculine-

feminine time"

- excerpt from "Northern mind"