| First
Male Voice
Floating
between pine covered mountains a world hushed in gray and
green soft islands drift by drenched in cloud silence sea.
August 10 2010. Alaska.
Second Male Voice
Cruising
with authentic souls on silver water beneath changing skies
Georgians: direct thoughts out of kind hearts over dinner.
A Lady to my left I mean a Lady 89 drinks Dewar’s
as straight as her opinions
kindly questions me as one would a stranger: once she entertained
Mamie Eisenhower now me consequently this tale is one of
irony.
First
Male Voice
Gray clouds build and pass over the water soften mountains
thoughts
Second
Male Voice
Time
Joy Pain immeasurable shapes emotions reflect off the wine
glass before me. The ship and conversation vibrates around
horses
Athens and Atlanta across a starched white linen table cloth.
Time Gentle Folk Please. To my right a young woman
relates how her niece hung herself this morning the ship
rolls
in the swell and outside an eagle dives and vanishes into
silver shadows.
First
Male Voice
Moving
between rugged mountains silhouettes clouds green pines
the late sun bursts upon the solitary rose centerpiece.
Second
Male Voice
The young woman tired of tears spins her empty glass clockwise
unconsciously looks out to the sommelier.
First
Female Voice
“
Life is good ” she says “ life is bad…
she waited ‘til her folks had left the house…she
had tried before… she was beautiful…bipolar…
the boys did love her so. Her father is an invalid
I
feel so useless here… floating in Alaska.”
Second
Male Voice
Love
is not Sex. Sex is not Love. Love is empathy for the mutability
of Life. Old Age is a Reliquary of Sacred Thoughts. Youth
the Anxiety of Chemistry.
The
old Lady finishes her whiskey I my wine the niece her life
as the waiter takes the things away the chandelier tires
my eyes.
Love is not Sex Sex is not Love. Life is too complex for
the young
too fast for the old: the waiter takes the things away.
First
Male Voice
Cloudless
day descending sun brightens the pool and children’s
laughter.
First Female Voice
“
I think we should go to Hawaii ” said the 8 year old
drying his hair.
“ No Paris ”
First
Male Voice
said
his sister 6 splashing in the shallow end.
Second
Female Voice
Marilyn
their Grandma Lost her husband 62 2 years ago fell down
the garden steps and broke his neck instant separation a
broken spirit lost at sea she distracts herself with the
minutia of infant entertainments: visiting restaurants booking
flights or sailing to exotic places. Reflective by the pool
her eyes are as deep and distant as the world encircling
her. Her London home comforts her goes there summer times
and Christmas now and then to see old friends. Her husband
was a Scholar Oil Man who loved the Thames and Primrose
Hill: they’d watch the children upon the hill fly
their kites on Sundays. “ No no I’m fine ”
she said to the waiter serving her. From San Antonio like
an ancient Goddess she wanders the Earth looking for her
daughter grand-daughter’s heart another Spring
rejuvenation as the little ones argue on: Tomorrow Personified.
Now at the pool hope through them fills the empty spaces
of a Universe new to her a wanderer in a new world: one
she has
never known.
Second Male Voice
The
children argue on about the difference between Montparnasse
and Moloki. They cannot know the pain she feels the age
of
comfort she thinks she will never see or so believes is
true.
Hope has yet to grab her hand and take her to a brunch or
two.
First
Female Voice
The
huge ocean strikes the bow and pounds the keel as the liner
rolls in its luxury while the cosmology of her circumstance
amazes and envelopes her.
First
Female Voice
“ Grandma we must go to Paris” “ No Grandma
Hawaii please.”
Second
Male Voice
As the
wind blows she thinks of him on Primrose Hill and sips her
tea.
First
Male Voice
“
She can dress me up she just can’t take me out ”
grins the Old Tycoon in a Tux. The band begins to play and
Charm the Singer
takes the microphone intones
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First
Female Voice
“ I Left My Heart In San Francisco ”
First
Male Voice as the bar fills at 6.
He glows with pride at his young bride and takes his gin
to a porthole chair undoes his bow settles there stares
at the fog and ocean swell puffs his cigar leans back and
smells the air: All is Well in his Universe.
First Female Voice
Once
she told her Ma quietly after many years what Uncle Ted
did to her each night when visiting: her mother screamed
“ Don’t you dare say such things- my brother
is a man of God go upstairs and stay up there. ”
She
cried and showered three times a day for many years. Revenge
on Men takes many forms but perfumed premeditation snakes
into
a woman’s heart insouciantly.
Second Male Voice
Theatre Played for other means: well known to Actors with
Bruised and Bloodied Minds who’ve seen what Men can
do: the Groundlings
look away.
First Female Voice
She
is beautiful demure and small curled like a cat upon a chair
next to him. She stirs the ice in her Whiskey Sour while
engaging him in conversation. A Red Head of such Pulchritude
the whole world spins around the stillness of her smile.
She glances at the other guests around the room beyond his
eyes smells her fur
Slaps Her Compact Closed. At length she stretches out her
feline legs throws off her boa and smells the ecstasy of
her success:
a gorgeous girl doing Hayworth in the wrong century purrs
in his ear
a vacuous line she heard somewhere.
Second Male Voice
Charm
the svelte exotic singing flower begins her second set:
a Male Fantasy out of Manila in a red sequined dress full
make-up and delivery nursing words born of joy and longing
sings languorously from her heart into the microphone. A
single mother
calling to her daughter across the surging sea
First Female Voice
“
How Deep Is The Ocean ( How High Is The Sky). ”
Second
Male Voice
The
bar at 3 in the afternoon and Danny from the Philippines
plays “ Clair de Lune ” softly to himself upon
a black Steinway Grand:
without him it would be but furniture. Immersed in his Reverie
he plays before the guests arrive for tea and sandwiches.A
private man
alone in sound caressing keys like a lover stroking hair.
First Male Voice
The
waiters stand around transfixed and silent appreciative
and still
cleaning glasses polishing the silverware as his music fills
the atmosphere.
Second Male Voice
In a
quiet corner I pour Darjeeling sugar cream and snap my biscuit
gingerly.
First
Male Voice
Danny
is a religious man he quotes the Bible frequently speaks
of his Wife as reverently a priest of Saints:
Second
Male Voice
he
e-mailed her a photo of the two of us strolling on deck
6
he in his Tux I in my summer whites.
Second
Female Voice
She
said “ He looks like an Angel… his eyes are
kind… befriend him if you can ”
Second Male Voice
and
so he did. Each
afternoon as the Ocean roars I listen to the melodies and
drift upon his sea.
First
Male Voice
Danny
opens the Great American Songbook as the restaurant fills
with conversation on Whales Sea Lions Bears and Diamond
sales:
they do not listen to Danny play he doesn’t care he
has made this journey so many times before. Danny just plays
the music as it takes his soul to another sphere Far Far
Away.
Second Male Voice
His
sounds the conversations blend imbue the gleaming bar and
have me feeling my soul again the one I thought was lost
now found once more between the notes. The room is full
the guests are served and Danny plays just brilliantly to
himself for an audience
not there.
If there
is a deity some grace some mystery a spirit a sacred force
it’s Music Music Music and Danny is its Minister.
First
Male Voice
The
Ocean Swells. The Liner Rolls. The Guests drink
a boisterous toast to Life.
August
19 above the Light of a three quarter loquacious Moon floats
inside blue drifting Ice and reflects upon the Captains
dark silent eyes as he takes the bridge.
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