Phantom Limbs (After Rumi)

[Cenacle]

Phantom Limbs
(After Rumi)


i.

We live our lives by habit. Each face
we have to show each other begs
for redemption. Eyes glisten.
Mouths silent.

We were raw. We matured. Then we burned.

Cascades of fresh notes as new soul
enters the twilight den. Crescendoes
of hope. Eyes glisten. A moment packed
to its combustible limit. Tick. Tick.

We live our lives by habit. Someone lights a hookah.


ii.

Today I awoke neither empty nor full.
Today I was not frightened.
Today the books blurred in sunlight.
Today discovered several dream-instruments
by my bedside.

Let the beauty we are be the love we feel.

Today I kneeled & kissed the ground.
Called it a sleeping kitten. Called it sky.

The hookah I smoked today puffed new clouds.
The new clouds floated to the ceiling, twined limbs.
Numberless sleeping kittens, blurred together in sunlight.


iii.

In your light, my bride, I learn about beauty.
Bridge, beauty, my shadows for your life.
My music for your love.

You dance inside my chest. Noone sees you.
Sometimes I do. This sight becomes my art.

A dream had by a tangle of warm kittens.
Hookah smoke. Morning sunlight. I need your help again.


iv.

Phantom limbs collect in the shadows of
the twilight den. The morning lingers
here. The murderers shift quietly among
their fouled blood.

We live by habit. Smoke the ceiling black
with our silence.

The lover, the poet, the painter & the philosopher
enter in a knot of squalor & convictions.
None drink the offered coffee.

The owner returns from putting down several
lambs. Even his ragged beard glints blood.
He settles among his reserved cushions with
thoughts of dinner. Brothels. The tone
of a particular thigh.

The lover stands, unsteadily, cries out,
pounds his heart. Phantom limbs
vibrate. Tinkle.

The poet laughs darkly. Recites a profane
rhyme. Praises Godd. Laughs louder.

The philosopher & painter consider the
brothel. Count their money. The
one with his thigh sheared off from a
tavern fight. The other willing to pay
more for the privilege of a room whose
wall muffles cries.

We live by habit. The owner will stay
home again tonight. His dinner a
thick stew.

The morning is over. Again, my bride hasn’t come.


v.

Morning. Twilight. Habit. Phantom limbs.
None make a difference.
Even midnight, its obscure blood & thunder.
No, makes no difference.

We live by habit. We stalk street corner
singers for news of our elusive
contentment. Wish something better in
the world was for sale. Brothels
of happiness. Brothels of Easter.

My friend, the lover, visits me most
mornings. We discuss my absent
bride. He praises her youth. Calls
her a kitten.

"She’s raw. She’ll mature. You’ll burn.
Happiness, my friend. I’ll come around
in a year to see how finely you’re burning."

But nothing makes a difference.
I’ll fill my bride, when she finally comes.
Watch her mature.
Watch her burn.
Watch her explode.


vi.

I promised my bride redemption, over &
over, until her eyes glistened.
Each time I touched her, a cascade of
fresh notes. Together we smoked
a hookah. I taught her to drift
along the morning, immolate slowly,
reason her way from worship of Godd
to ambiguity, evanescence, twilight.
She finally agreed: Churches take away
everything. Leave us embarrassed.
Leave us clean & grey & dismal
with comfort.

I seduced my bride into hope of
a lesser paradise. She was happy.
"No more veils," she said, & kissed me.
"No more fractured pipes to bliss," she said
& urged me to lick harder.

Then she was gone. I smoke less
often now. Waiting.

In her absence I am learning how to love.
Remembering her beauty, I understand
music better.
She dances inside my chest, like a
bright fever with raw yellow claws.
None in the den sees her, swirling
& crackling among those phantom limbs.
I do. I do & I understand music
better, my pain exhaling fresh
cascades of notes every moment.

"No more veils," she said, & kissed me.


vii.

We live our lives by habit.
We were clean. We bloom. We fall.
We spend our finite number of faces
readying to ask the most important
question, the only question. The moment
comes. Maybe morning. Maybe twilight.
The moment comes. Our eyes glisten.

The philosopher finishes another coffee.
"Praise Godd? No, friend. That’s not
what he’s there for."

Our eyes glisten. The moment passes.


viii.

The poet brings me his new songs.
The poet rhymes emptiness & fear
with his strong voice & lithe muscles.
The poet writes nothing down, save on
the backs of prostitutes who mother
him & feed him good wine.
The poet disdains the use of any instrument
to accompany his song.
The poet kneels. Imparts to the earth
the treasure of his touch.

The poet tells me of beauty til I
complain. I damn hookah smoke &
coffee. I damn the helplessness
of longing. Of love.

The poet praises Godd. Laughs darkly.
Recites a profane rhyme.
Mentions my bride’s name. I laugh with him.


ix.

I rarely leave the twilight den
anymore. The owner shows me
his herd of sheep. He praises their
wool, their meat. Praises their
dumbness.

"Without our damned questions how easy
our lives would pass!" he cries.
"No churches! No hookahs! No brothels!"

Later, his mind devolved to mist,
he allows the painter to continue
work on his portrait.

The painter limps slowly. The painter
knows I see phantom limbs everywhere.
Asks me questions as he paints our
topored friend.

"Where do you think my bride has
gone!" I answer. "I was the first
to see her naked back glisten in the
moonlight! I released her from
so much!"

The painter shows me his picture.
My bride lies sleeping in a gaunt-faced
mist. Blue streaks run violently
down her back.

The owner stirs angrily. Demands
order & calm in his establishment.
Mumbles praises of Godd. Great
belly rumbles


x.

I promised my bridge redemption,
until her eyes glistened, over & over,
until her eyes glistened.

Days pass, fade. Twilight always.

I visit the brothel often tho they refuse
my money. They lock the front
door some nights when I come.

One agrees to be my bride’s legs.
Another her breasts. Candy. Kittens. Blood. Thunder.
Another her mouth. Another her thighs.
But they all fight to be her back glistening
in the moonlight.

This too will become habit.

Redemption happens every moment of
our lives, or never at all.

Returning to the twilight den, I take
my new place, among the murderers,
them shifting among their fouled blood.

"No more veils," she said, & kissed me.

My eyes glisten. The moment passes.

March 5, 1999
Boston, Massachusetts

[Cenacle]

This poem was inspired, in part, by the poems of the ancient Persian poet Rumi, whose poems I published in a collection that can be gotten here: http://scriptorpress.yage.net/BM01_1999_rumi.pdf

Working with several of his poems, I conjured up the poem's narrative, which was also inspired by the weird human condition known as phantom limbs, whereby a person who has lost a limb still feels it present for a long time afterward...

powerful painful metaphor emerged from all of this...the result is the poem...

[Arcadia]

beautiful cenacle!!!, & thanks for the link!!

[stilltrucking]

Rumi: Body Intelligence.

"The movement of your finger
is not seperate from your finger"
***
Or say, "I cannot praise You
as You should be praised.

Such words are infinitely
beyond my understanding."

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Beautiful poem Cenacle, thank you for posting it.

[WIREMAN]

thanks!