Dousing the Phoenix
And Then
I live with my Mother in a crumbling, rust-red house. Or, rather, she lives with me—better: resides. Rests, better still. Beneath the damp basement floorboards she lies prostrate, engulfed in moist earth. Old Mother Thomas. Stiffened by death, in the sense that her body has long since ceased to function, she sleeps: wooden. All around her the worms are stirring the dirt, wriggling past her. Dead, under the rotting floor, she decomposes; in life she had decomposed over the floor. Little difference—both were unwanted. And unwitting.
She hadn’t much enjoyed life anyhow. Except for her children. Oh, she had many, many children, nursed each and every one at her breast, loved them, spoke to them as they suckled. Mother. A child’s first love, a child’s first sustenance, a child’s first words. First ideas, experiences. Gravitating to her teat, blind, mute infants had opened and closed toothless mouths, gumming for their Mother’s milk, but no longer.
Now only I remain, my brothers and sisters lying with our Mother. I must stay here, in her house—in our house. I’ve left before. Left my Mother, left her house. Never for a long time of course. Only briefly, in short spurts, and I kept in contact, writing letters. I'd been away when it happened, in fact. But now I stay here, to preserve their memory. Trichinosis took them all; parasites fed on their innards, glutting themselves on ignorance, and they ceased, my family. A horrid accident. They stopped speaking, though they had never really spoken—to me, to each other—they died in silence.
Down into the muck they collapsed, mud oozing over their bodies. And so I placed the boards over them. Concrete would have been a travesty. Why did I not bury them, as is the custom, in a cemetery? Is that really any better? Here they would always be as close to my body as they were to my mind. Why should I keep my Mother's memory anywhere but her house? That much, surely, she deserved. To stay in this place, as in the Egyptian pyramids—an altar to her memory. The priceless past, forever preserved in my own underground museum.
Now, always back to now, the house of my Mother is empty, save me. Here I mind their graves and talk to them. Yes, I’m always speaking—to them, to myself. Damn it all, I’ve spilled water all over the floor. Dirty water, caking dust-mud all over the kitchen tiles. It was clean when it was in my little glass jar. Sparkling, clear water, I watched as it sat on the table—watched it ripple and shimmer. A slip of the hand and it fell to the ground, marblelinoleumfloorshattering…
I should mop it up—soak up this dust-congealing liquid. No sense in keeping water without its being pristine. Very well, then. Remove this grey, gelatinous mess. A brief pause from my narrative while I utilize Mother's mop. How many times, how many times I've done so. On to the mop.
Perhaps I should dust as well, to prevent any tainted water in the future. No. There will always be dust. Crumbled pebbles' pebbles. Unto dust thou shalt return, each day of your life, wallowing in dull, dead flakes of skin. It's sickening. All this filth—corrupt, twisted, false. On a lush hill, the shining temple of the Word of God rots from termites and age—a feast for the ravenous serpent, who crawls on his belly and consumes the only true eternal.
But he did not always crawl, devouring dirty dust. Before his curse, infinite eons had been spent conversing with God. Infallible, smooth liquidity flowed in the Word, in the beginning. Soundless, spherical utterances issued from the divine mouth. And then. And then the serpent whissperwound his venom into the world. Descended to Eve, slithered to her marble-carved ear that she should hear his hushed hissing. He touched the dust with his tongue, that he should make dust when it came time to speak of it, as it was, had been, would be, with God. But when he spoke of dust, it did not appear. Echoing the serpent's sound, Eve sinned with Adam. Down to their bellies they fell; the ground split asunder, and the wrath of God thundered upon them. They reeled in misery and shame, their faces hidden in the dirt, crumbling plaster. Adam lost the names which, through God, he had given all things. With a cracked voice, he slowly spoke new names at them, as the serpent had named the dust. The sounds leaving his lips in shrieking flecks of spit.
What foolish pomposity this story harbors! All this and that about David or the Tower of Babel, God's framework or the Serpent's. Dan to Beersheba, the holy Whole. My Mother always liked the beginning, though, quoting John 1:1 whenever she had the chance. Plans this and unity that: marble and stone. There was a time when I, too, embraced it. So long ago, when there was the laughter. Lost with her, so long ago. When I thought I could morph and mate things and ideas, make them my own, create something new, something perfect. And then? And then. And now? I don't know—and then as well, I suppose.
No. Know. And now, and then—the same to me. Nothing immobile. How could I let myself ignore it? I fell from my past, but I never left. But, then, has anything really changed? Yes. Everything. Everything but me. Everything but what I chose to see. Another man. Consumption and regurgitation. The subway. The museum. The Curator, though his schedule told him otherwise. Dust. I cannot write so quickly as I must. My mind flashes these images before me and I begin to understand. I can't believe I missed them, distorting my sight no better than the Curator with his little black book! Crying out that all is tainted, and then fearing those imperfections? To call the Word false, yet grip to it, not believing my own assertions? Be a man! Sun and beggar. When I thought I was sun, I squelched the beggar. When I pretended to be beggar, I hated both. Purity: extremes: the ignorant, Procrustean weakness. Painting frames and water glasses splintershatter in my mind, but I am yet beginning.
All this time I feared those crowds—those people—when it was the tracks the tracks the tracks. Above and below, frames and tracks. Prettily packaged panting of young-in-love hearts, single sighted, echo in the statued halls of the museum, a far away sound, far away and long ago. Intangible. How could I cling to echoes so desperately? A poet would say that I clutched at my own ashes—trapped, like a phoenix, born and reborn in the smoldering past. I am no poet; a true poet would douse that phoenix, put out its hellish immortality. Now I’ve gone and made another hulking assumption! What did I just say about being a poet? Their words are and are not my words. "Words" isn't quite right. There are many languages, not all of them written, and as many cages. My past speaks to me in silky nostalgia—spider-webbing Siren.
Nous sommes des enfants. Cruel, twisted in innocence, children flail in their nightmared sleep, propelled by a moving sidewalk. One day we will wake. I am off. What will I find beyond Mother, museum, and subway, away from the sounds that I know, the places? I don't know. There are many tracks. Even the new route I take is another's old. The frame I crack releases me to yet another frame, a stronger frame. Here I am again, lost in my museum. Up. Up from my seat, and out once I am up, the sunlight warm on my face, warm for the first time in a long time. And then?
And then.
She hadn’t much enjoyed life anyhow. Except for her children. Oh, she had many, many children, nursed each and every one at her breast, loved them, spoke to them as they suckled. Mother. A child’s first love, a child’s first sustenance, a child’s first words. First ideas, experiences. Gravitating to her teat, blind, mute infants had opened and closed toothless mouths, gumming for their Mother’s milk, but no longer.
Now only I remain, my brothers and sisters lying with our Mother. I must stay here, in her house—in our house. I’ve left before. Left my Mother, left her house. Never for a long time of course. Only briefly, in short spurts, and I kept in contact, writing letters. I'd been away when it happened, in fact. But now I stay here, to preserve their memory. Trichinosis took them all; parasites fed on their innards, glutting themselves on ignorance, and they ceased, my family. A horrid accident. They stopped speaking, though they had never really spoken—to me, to each other—they died in silence.
Down into the muck they collapsed, mud oozing over their bodies. And so I placed the boards over them. Concrete would have been a travesty. Why did I not bury them, as is the custom, in a cemetery? Is that really any better? Here they would always be as close to my body as they were to my mind. Why should I keep my Mother's memory anywhere but her house? That much, surely, she deserved. To stay in this place, as in the Egyptian pyramids—an altar to her memory. The priceless past, forever preserved in my own underground museum.
Now, always back to now, the house of my Mother is empty, save me. Here I mind their graves and talk to them. Yes, I’m always speaking—to them, to myself. Damn it all, I’ve spilled water all over the floor. Dirty water, caking dust-mud all over the kitchen tiles. It was clean when it was in my little glass jar. Sparkling, clear water, I watched as it sat on the table—watched it ripple and shimmer. A slip of the hand and it fell to the ground, marblelinoleumfloorshattering…
I should mop it up—soak up this dust-congealing liquid. No sense in keeping water without its being pristine. Very well, then. Remove this grey, gelatinous mess. A brief pause from my narrative while I utilize Mother's mop. How many times, how many times I've done so. On to the mop.
Perhaps I should dust as well, to prevent any tainted water in the future. No. There will always be dust. Crumbled pebbles' pebbles. Unto dust thou shalt return, each day of your life, wallowing in dull, dead flakes of skin. It's sickening. All this filth—corrupt, twisted, false. On a lush hill, the shining temple of the Word of God rots from termites and age—a feast for the ravenous serpent, who crawls on his belly and consumes the only true eternal.
But he did not always crawl, devouring dirty dust. Before his curse, infinite eons had been spent conversing with God. Infallible, smooth liquidity flowed in the Word, in the beginning. Soundless, spherical utterances issued from the divine mouth. And then. And then the serpent whissperwound his venom into the world. Descended to Eve, slithered to her marble-carved ear that she should hear his hushed hissing. He touched the dust with his tongue, that he should make dust when it came time to speak of it, as it was, had been, would be, with God. But when he spoke of dust, it did not appear. Echoing the serpent's sound, Eve sinned with Adam. Down to their bellies they fell; the ground split asunder, and the wrath of God thundered upon them. They reeled in misery and shame, their faces hidden in the dirt, crumbling plaster. Adam lost the names which, through God, he had given all things. With a cracked voice, he slowly spoke new names at them, as the serpent had named the dust. The sounds leaving his lips in shrieking flecks of spit.
What foolish pomposity this story harbors! All this and that about David or the Tower of Babel, God's framework or the Serpent's. Dan to Beersheba, the holy Whole. My Mother always liked the beginning, though, quoting John 1:1 whenever she had the chance. Plans this and unity that: marble and stone. There was a time when I, too, embraced it. So long ago, when there was the laughter. Lost with her, so long ago. When I thought I could morph and mate things and ideas, make them my own, create something new, something perfect. And then? And then. And now? I don't know—and then as well, I suppose.
No. Know. And now, and then—the same to me. Nothing immobile. How could I let myself ignore it? I fell from my past, but I never left. But, then, has anything really changed? Yes. Everything. Everything but me. Everything but what I chose to see. Another man. Consumption and regurgitation. The subway. The museum. The Curator, though his schedule told him otherwise. Dust. I cannot write so quickly as I must. My mind flashes these images before me and I begin to understand. I can't believe I missed them, distorting my sight no better than the Curator with his little black book! Crying out that all is tainted, and then fearing those imperfections? To call the Word false, yet grip to it, not believing my own assertions? Be a man! Sun and beggar. When I thought I was sun, I squelched the beggar. When I pretended to be beggar, I hated both. Purity: extremes: the ignorant, Procrustean weakness. Painting frames and water glasses splintershatter in my mind, but I am yet beginning.
All this time I feared those crowds—those people—when it was the tracks the tracks the tracks. Above and below, frames and tracks. Prettily packaged panting of young-in-love hearts, single sighted, echo in the statued halls of the museum, a far away sound, far away and long ago. Intangible. How could I cling to echoes so desperately? A poet would say that I clutched at my own ashes—trapped, like a phoenix, born and reborn in the smoldering past. I am no poet; a true poet would douse that phoenix, put out its hellish immortality. Now I’ve gone and made another hulking assumption! What did I just say about being a poet? Their words are and are not my words. "Words" isn't quite right. There are many languages, not all of them written, and as many cages. My past speaks to me in silky nostalgia—spider-webbing Siren.
Nous sommes des enfants. Cruel, twisted in innocence, children flail in their nightmared sleep, propelled by a moving sidewalk. One day we will wake. I am off. What will I find beyond Mother, museum, and subway, away from the sounds that I know, the places? I don't know. There are many tracks. Even the new route I take is another's old. The frame I crack releases me to yet another frame, a stronger frame. Here I am again, lost in my museum. Up. Up from my seat, and out once I am up, the sunlight warm on my face, warm for the first time in a long time. And then?
And then.