Little Miss Morimoto

[dedalus]

Little Miss Morimoto

 

(for YM with rueful affection, in memory of a light interlude

that went disastrously comically wrong)

 

Silence

is the ultimate response

to impulses, to importunities,

casting a veil, a cloudlike mist,

over all our certainties.

 

In the pressing heat of these long summer days,

amid the sonorous sound of morning cicadas,

a cold icicle pierces, a splinter, a knife,

into the centre of my life: winter weighs in,

and as a frozen apple on the frost-whipped tree,

so dies all feeling between you and me.

 

Your eyes, your smile:

the eternal feminine mystery,

returning, recharged,

in each cycle of human history.

Heliotropic, a turning towards the sun,

this is what you were to me;

but after light and warmth,

what one needs from the sun

is constancy.

 

We grow old, day by day,

we that have not succumbed

to childhood illnesses, road accidents,

the wiles of the recruiting sergeant;

and those who have lived well,

flushed with wine and income,

flood the news with interviews

while the rest of us shiver in the shadows,

clipping coupons, bravely dissolving,

probably facing worse to come.

 

If the rich could live forever

(organ transplants, hormone injections)

that would be the crowning insult.

I think of Herod, of Croesus of Lydia,

of more recent spectacular implosions:

as long as they can die in shame and agony

some justice lingers in the world.

 

Pheromes dropping from heaven above

(a scent that arches from each pore)

can make the boys and girls feel giddy,

as interest aroused, they reach for more:

emotions sliding, then a skiddy into touch

like a greasy football: ahh, romantic love!

 

Love is infernal, it is eternal.

Words written upon a page,

or an all-consuming radical rage?

Groan and thrust against a wall,

say pious prayers before each meal

not to think these things at all?

 

Whatever you say, baby doll.

Holy moley, I’ll be late for work!

 

Morning dawns on America.

It never seems to dawn anywhere else.

The night simply stops, the day begins

and ignoring a multitude, a plenitude of sins,

we drag ourselves out of sleep,

from very occasional happy dreams,

(the nightmares usually spring you awake)

to face another day, its name and number.

 

We no longer slumber

among the gods of ancient times

for we no longer live in ancient times

and cannot share the old traditions.

We live in a spiritually shrunken world

of unbridled technology: the 10 GB RAM,

the speed, the add-ons and additions,

the feelings of envy and awe!

(is this all that we're living for?)

The power! The potential! The hype!

Surf U-Tube, download, talk on Skype.

 

There has to be some other connection,

nothing to do with blinding speed,

a connection between present and past:

without memory, non-RAM human memory,

life would lose all meaning.

 

In the deep dark passages of a devious brain

remains a train of thought:

snail-slime seen under black light.

 

Last week’s e-mails …

 

are the dusty archives of the non-dawning day:

darling, however so much I loved you,

we could never quite match the passion

of last week’s e-mails. Now, of course,

there are no e-mails at all.

 

My darling …

your black sparkling eyes

your body like a bolt of thunder!

We met in June, parted in July,

and I sometimes wonder why

these things come down like summer storms.

 

Love is …

love is a flight of birds

over a morning lake, a rustle of wings

over stillness, a descent of silence.

 

Love is …

love is giving in hope of return,

trying so hard, so very hard to understand,

reaching only approximation.

 

There was affection, yes.

There was style and languorous grace!

But when I reached out for your heart

there was nothing there, an absence,

nothing but an empty space.

 

Silence

is the ultimate response

to all the things we hope for,

to all the things we fear,

to all the things we cannot understand.

 

When you die, sweet girl,

as we all must die,

a kaleidoscope of images will flash, unbidden,

across your aged, your withered brain,

and of this present pulsating summer

not a single memory will remain.

 

And that will be the final end.

Yes, that will be the end. But will it?

Long after you and I are dust and clay

some earnest future scholar may

unearth this poem, and recall

the beauty, cruelty of it all.

[David W. Parsley]

Dedalus, there are real sorrows swimming in this long draught of regrets and perplexities. I am fascinated by the interplay of a general sense of loss and nostalgia excited into expression in the face of a here-and-now failure to break beyond a sound-bite experience so pregnant with thunderous potential. The ghost of what was and could have been haunts in and out of this piece with great effect.

 

I do not see a CA in the title, so will withhold any suggestions. A good read.

 

Thanks

- Dave

[tonyv]

How true. A scholar may/unearth this poem, and recall/the beauty, cruelty of it all! And even the emails (you say there were none) live on some server, and if some bored data farm maintainer someday should care to read ... And we can delete them, those nonexistent emails, from the email accounts, but can we delete them from our minds and hearts? As cynical as this poem initially appears to be, I doubt the author can.

 

Tastefully done. Nice to see you, Brendan.

 

Tony

 

PS -- I'm reminded of a poem with a similar sentiment. I'll post it in the Reading forum. Here's the LINK.

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

on another note of lite humor. i could really see a non distant future because of greed erasing valuable feedback on wensites being searched for lost wisdomm, knowledge, insight, and understanding into many avenues.

 

i really feel for you. i have walked this fine line before also and saw thew challenges or influences of trying to pick my head up of the floor and hold it up high no matter how hard it seemed to be to face a new road that i must do, have to endure going thru.

 

 

 

victor