graphics mode c r o s s X c o n n e c t previous | next

| main page
| issue contents
| contributors
| e-mail us
x
c
o
n
n
e
c
t
   f r o m    p r a y e r /r u p t u r e /d w e l l i n g

--- C H A R L E S   A L E X A N D E R   A N D   S H E I L A   M U R P H Y


the window makes it difficult to know what we are doing in the present state of painting

as what is out there transpires with us and against us, breathing we are not alone and we perceive

only part of anything, through what we think is truth, and even that has its own window of escape

an ordinary thing to make, like this or that word together at table becomes nameless, asks for air

Air tables likeness, for together breathing transpires, doing difficult painting. No matter how gradual, the only part of anything we think is truth. To know what we are doing would amount to missing what we are. This or that word received is distant from the fingerings. While hearing a flute concerto, I can feel every note in my two hands. Have never lost the embouchure exactly. In the meantime, this other half of lifetime, state of marking what I hear.

air's given coolness thrums through indoor space

part of the window is pink mountain at a certain hour of day part green, part movement,

everything ordinary is this loved

Once, at fourteen, I played a trumpet solo from Orff's Carmina Burana. This was echoed by the same notes, on oboe, played by Rebecca Perot. I still find myself, at times, repeating the fingerings, shaping mouth for the playing. I remember little else from the band, can name few players, but I can still feel, although not hear, everything about the playing of those few bars. And I can hear, precisely, Rebecca's oboe. To this day, the oboe remains one of my favorite instruments to which to listen. I have found myself writing about this before, although not this directly, sometimes intermingling the name Perot with pierrot. Whenever I think of *pierrot,* I think of Jean-Louis Barrault in *Les Enfants du Paradis.*

oboe to perot to pierrot links music history to a film both worded and silent

and different ages remembered with subdued lights, everything ordinary and loved

or nothing plain at all in indoor spaces open at all points to air

Unexplainably, the word *twilight*. Possibly the separation, never really there, between indoor and rooftop. Trumpet was my choice. That bell triples my happiness, so I would borrow Tom's. Insensitively, sometimes, played the instruments of others, with them there. The sort of hurt that only one smarting from same is able to inflict. I knew that shrillness was as polished as brash snow to morning eyesight. Although woodwinds have a built-in mute, the flute, in silver, was assigned outside true family of itself. My instrument.

fourteen, filmed silently with feeling the open air again wording a solo accomplished beyond materials a waltz of hearing

Eyes can say wet father wants moment of notes for years always loved. Loss nearest thing to pressure, adding risk tones outside. Many wants only a few words. Release so can draw more. Belief is root vowel. Successive arrive painting, listening small eyes. Hearing fourteen borrow sometimes played shrillness as polished. In silver, instrument with open air feeling solo beyond waltz. Unexplainably. My outside true family.

the mountain laurel wavers when the music comes too much ease, the red flowered bougainvillea conspires with June to waltz away as flute reminds every cell that words release everything, no trumpet calls needed in open air again beyond hearing beyond dream of all things which flow water prayer and some quiet too because without small things there goes green away and never bell sound again

Away small quiet flows a dream again. Calls release, remand June bougainvillea when beyond is painted. And things too needed let go green without a bell, the trumpet air, the wording of a flute, not red but fourteen. Instruments are family. Risk. And root vowels eventually polished.

moment of notes for years arrivals implant segues just as we reciprocate the floral tinges with neglect half smothered in them waiting dream is daylight then and such prayer lavishes the little walkways ease not to be confused with sweet

Confusion serves to remind that we are inside something we can't know. Such a position can be sweet, we arrive and for years reciprocate this lack. Don't say risk because there is no need, it's part of the equation from the beginning. The pleasure of the root vowel is that it is multiple, we sound and suck its fruit. Dream again as we pray.

words act and swallow red balls, intention continues into hiding

the edge of the sky is green, and celebrates its undoing

in the woods there are no dull moments and no definitions

the little walkways measure social space with marks of contention

Places finesse their two-way form as point and path. And so moments, each and flowing. Undoing is a higher order of color. Sky's artistry. How many centimeters of dilation mean the fruit is on its way? If multiples contend one center, pleasure is in learning that. The woods have numerous equations, less tight than we know.

reciprocity allows edge to be song for song

continues worthing social space dull moments

known for what statis has arched therefore contention

Pleasure falling off the end of the table, the ground is cool and unknown. Equations are learned and unlearned. Division rounds everything into uncomfortable rest. A magnet closes a door and stays quietly over stone. Crayola another way of saying *I want you.* With no hesitation, we jump. Song points disjunction's way. Apologies break temple walls. Flecks of light upon dark sky mass until something calls out. Therefore has arched its way to restitution.

© crossconnect 1995-1999 |
published in association with the |
university of pennsylvania kelly writers house |