does it matter

 

into the stillness stare

intent and wait and strain to hear

and start to fear

that what if what I thought was there

just never was

Intermezzo noir

 

When I’ve had enough of the Caberet Headquarters dungeon; the weirdness of subterranean life, like living underground, viewing the world in cyber space I can only do that for so long .... I really don’t like that because I so detest being trapped inside. it is like torture —especially this year.... like everyone else 

so much prefer being outside; among trees and wild life .... so desperately long for the forest tree lined trails, the grass and the woods 

Likewise, the desperate need for anything tactile 

which, this year, calls for some extreme invention of ideas towards the primitive 

considering survival options for planning what to do with a long winter stretching ahead.... promising drear.... 

avoiding populous; crowds; society 

....without climbing the walls for the next six months —at least— of Adirondaks mountain-cold; caveman snow and high altitude blizzards; it fills me with dread

hopefully still containing the memory of how to use practical physical exertion skills with some prospect of discernible application

I decide, as I have always had an interest to experiment in botany.... 

to order a wide range of things to grow in doors 

Which today prompts what’s in hand upon their arrival by post —along with what I come to realize is quite an ambitious amount of terra-cotta pots.... I suppose I must have been quite bored at the time I placed the order —as I am faced with a kind of endless and involved Russian-doll task of having to unpack the daunting lot. Adrift in bubble-wrap, seeming a twisting sheet of several meters-long stream of a recycled, paper, boa constrictor, and a million environmentally-friendly (how friendly?) packing peanuts .... what the fuck was I thinking that day? At least the mess is all in the farmhouse, so Jörn won’t have any idea of the extent of my madness 

having dragged the boxes down the hill, as I couldn’t have chanced dropping them through the pantry trap door 

immediately have to go about rearranging my artist’s studio to accommodate some space. 

I always find the process of physical work to be a great device for meditation and clothed in my favorite artist smock gear of paint splattered black leggings with my paint smeared giant plaid flannel shirt—a hundred sizes too big to allow for the several layers beneath, much required in the freezing and gutted farmhouse. So, sleeves rolled up to my elbows, get to work; first sweeping away the summer debris of bugs and then set up rows of metal racks; which arrived a few days ahead, thankfully, I’ve already set up — intended for drying herbs. But then I am finding now I’m thinking of other possibilities.... Is there enough space for candle making I wonder? —as I don’t like being bored.... maybe they could be put in the Caberet catalogue ....?

The gust of cold should have alerted me,

“What is all this?”

“Uh—what?” I walk straight towards my easel and brushes, “just paint and things....gosh, that meeting ended sooner than you expected, how was it?”

Still he looks stubbornly back at the slithering Basilisk-like ‘boa constrictor’ taking over the majority of the farmhouse floor.... along with the infestation of peanuts ....and taking in the mass array of seemingly multiplying terra-cotta pots with a dubious expression

 of ....some kind that I ....don’t know how to interpret (—maybe it’s disbelief?)

 ....and decide not to 

and focus on what is in front of me as his appearance is a sexy distraction.... like how good he looks in that shade of gray with his eyes ....

“So how was it?” I ask going over to him

“What?” he says as I reach up to loosen his hair and watch it fall through my fingers,

“what is that—cedar or cloves?—you smell good....” and breathe it in

“You’re trying to distract me....” but I don’t let him finish that and kiss his mouth, “....from the fire hazard going on in here....” he mumbles anyway 

“It’s just a new project —I would have had it all done in here had you kept to your schedule—so why are you back early?”

“I just didn’t feel right about you being here without.... I just wanted to double check the security system —oh, that’s right! —there’s interesting development with the vaccine I need to act on ....” but I sense he wants to distract me from what he began to say

“What do you mean?”I ask, but kissing me back, clearly he decides, instead to continue my line of attack with marked proficiency 

“I mean, maybe you should leave this hazard in here for later and come back up the hill with me,” even as he raises me onto the nearest countertop, moving his hands up the paint splattered leggings, “but first I think I need to give you a bath—you’re so filthy!”

which is true. he’s not kidding.... as we really have to get better about cleaning this farmhouse and I think I say something like that or —maybe it was, “yeah, I feel so dirty, let’s go....” but then we don’t go right away 

next scene; Electra’s dictionary/a stairway to heaven; a denouement .... and the vampire noir (jm muse continues)

 

****

I guess, at this time it is necessary to elaborate more in detail things I have only touched upon

 —if we are ever to reach Paradiso (or do I mean Valhalla?—with Jörn as guide?)

******

the morning after.... 

I wake up hungry and go to the kitchen and start to make something for breakfast ....he has gone for his run .... in front of the stove, I find I get lost in thought and ....need to write 

because as I think about Jörn and his more lucid and sensitive moments of .... what is that? Reflection? I was going to say emotions, but is it that....? as I struggle to pinpoint if I’ve observed .... any there but.... there have been moments —like .... well.... I have seen those glimpses about him, especially engrossed in his music, or when I know he remembers and thinks about those memories that we both share.... the dreams from what I have come to accept as real; from an actual real life.... dare I say it here? and all that too about Jörn— I know he feels there is something to it there 

And even related to present life, how when something is going on —I have seen he avoids it

as I am aware he does feel deeply because— I have seen the hints of it behind his eyes.... those hints of something quite deep and intense— but he will not express this, I know I have seen it pass across his features and I have felt it from him—but something seems to always stop him from letting it; from fully feeling it.... and I think something keeps him from letting himself

it is the intensity. Only I do not believe it is as simple as ‘fear’

..... I saw it that night; it was before he left for Sweden back in September—it was that night when he found me.... outside .... the night after the zoom call with Paulina, when I found I’d faced some demons from out of the closet .... and I saw something there in his face when he found me on the ground; it was there on his face—like a window shade drawn down showing almost another face— a moment there it was; across his features, a white fear; a glimpse of worry—and I saw .... was it that he thought.... ? he had found me with the pocket knife.... and then I moved and —then it was gone; it just quickly evaporated from his face; like the shade quickly shot up.... but right before it went I saw it there clearly— I think maybe it was terror, you see, because he could not find words after as he looked at me to even express what I could see had been there just a moment before in his eyes.... 

those deeper emotions which I am certain are there but that he steers clear of. Each time I have ever asked what he feels, he refers to his music .... is that his legend? the keys.... his own keys to everything ....?

and so I have to wonder about the dreams ....with their terrors —like the music to his opera which he has mentioned before; like the battles that he has referenced....  like those shadows I have watched on the wall as he plays out scenes of a life and its purpose to compose it which seems to mean more than to share it or have it performed .... are the smeden’s swords there too in his music, I wonder?—the endless nights by the forge? ....maybe they are there too in his music.... like the beach and the stars; the moon.... and running into the waves —to drown ....the beach and the midnight sun .... it is all in his music, isn’t it? have I not heard it? I recognize it all, I realize 

and even the last memory in the hut .... with the hides turning red with blood .... as I have also known and felt ....going cold and looking up and seeing, watching me, those vampire eyes 

It cannot be that it is just to dream of —not just to haunt a soul. It must mean something more than —just this 

and his music— to him, it must mean more, the musical keys more than just keys to music— because, I think, they are more like actual keys 

these things in every day life

we walk by 

we ignore them 

don’t we laugh at strange coincidences? 

No, instead it is easier to believe what society ingrains, isn’t it? Empty material concerns which in the end mean nothing at all and .....we are all required to be part of a machine and  for whose benefit? an assigned role to live a life which blinds too many to live such empty lives. So why is the world so dissatisfied? Is anyone really alive?

So long ago when I first began to have the dreams —when I was going to see Dr. Rothschild. I told her about them and —she believed me. That is why she regressed me.  Did hypnosis which, she told me at the time, was frowned down upon by her profession but— as she was soon retiring to write a book on her works, she felt daring to break some rules. And.... I know, to also document 

I get a chill now and half consider calling Gerald to talk.... because ..... as I write these thoughts into my phone .... it feels like something necessary is surfacing 

but I find myself locked in a kind of wonder .... as if on the edge of some kind of epiphany 

 —if Jörn has been my Virgil, maybe it is no accident then .....is it possible too, then —that maybe I am —his— Beatrice.... ? 

to take some journey back to .... his battlefields .... and face emotions

and maybe the music is a kind of ‘bridge’ —his own need to integrate something because 

as he seems not have access to something .... that keeps him from experiencing — but the opera ....it haunts him like a tug-of-war that keeps that hold on him and pulls him back and I see how it refuses to let him go 

So now I think.... as I know I search and struggle to understand life and meaning; especially now in this nightmare of times of what feels too much in this present life as apocalyptic times. 

So ..... I guess I find I wonder.... dictionary..... what if to each other we are both guides?

who found each other for this purpose; both artists who are a bit ill equipped with expressing in the ordinary ways but to each other somehow find ways to communicate; like pictures in the sand ....and it occurs to me, as it so often has, that he understands me better than ....anyone I have ever known 

My mind goes back to that day before he left—what he had asked me that day....what was it he said?....I forget his exact words something like “How was it that I beat the odds of the statistics?”

because I had once told him what Dr. Rothschild has said (no, that was not really her name, I chose this name for a decoy to conceal who she really was as her family was also of another well known dynasty —in this country—so, for purposes here, this name characterizes and safely serves to deflect who she really was; as woven in, much of what I write is actually true)

   

when she had called me a “trailblazer mapping my own course in uncharted territory when no one else known ever had....” because around the time I went to see her there had been no known documented cases of someone who had survived to adulthood —

I mean....so again, I say this: I guess at this time it is necessary to elaborate more in detail of things I have only touched upon....

It was because, you see, I had not succumbed to the statistics — those peer reviewed, documented and charted cases of those who, to put it bluntly: beginning at an early age, those who were victims of physical and sexual abuse on a regular basis and which, oddly enough, always seemed to be the prologue to later experiences in young adult life of violence and rape, lending a checkerboard pattern of calamities throughout their short lifespan. In effect, what would tend to follow was a life of drug addictions leading to overdose, or experiences of assault or their own intended suicide. As two other ....such persons.... I have known in my family whom —I have made reference to here....

****

I am sill in the kitchen when he returns from his morning run. 

he intrepidly walks over to me and tries to be somewhat playful, not knowing how to act after last night— which, he may not realize, be that as it may, after a month of dormancy, has left me sore— and more in his favor

but still he says,

“your flaming ginger roots are growing in,” as he tries to make light conversation, “they make it look like your scalp is on fire—have you decided to stop making it that dark burgundy?” 

I am not sure whether to laugh or to be offended,

“I just haven’t been in the mood for the whole henna process.... Jörn, I’m not mad at you....” I say looking up at him, “you don’t have to act like you need to walk on egg shells....”

“No.... but I think .... I understand.... what you have been trying to say....” which does surprise me. He moves nearer to me where I am mixing a pot of porridge; today it is whole grain wheat and the warm aroma fills the kitchen. He takes a lingering reflective moment to play with my hair roots, “I don’t understand why you go through the trouble to cover it, some people would kill to have this color naturally.”

“It’s almost blonde now. I don’t see myself as a blonde.  But, the effort to bother lately doesn’t feel worth it—“

“No, it’s definitely still red— it’s  flaming!” he teasingly objects 

“—so what exactly do you understand? —what Jörn? I mean, since now you have mentioned it....?”

“You think I come and go as I please ....with no concern for you.”

“It was a month with hardly a phone call, who knows what you get up to back in Sweden with your ex there among others....”

“My ex? Duva, I wasn’t just in Sweden, I was actually on the move quite a lot, and that is why I did not have a lot of time to ....call. I’m sorry. My work gets in the way of things like this. Probably why, before we met, I had not been in any meaningful relationship for a long time.... But, listen, there is something else you should know—“ he pauses an instant to meet my eyes, “I guess you won’t be shocked to know this because of Gerald— I was being followed by—a certain demon of —your—past....”

If I was not sure whom, his tone is enough to fill in as it does not take me long to deduce

“Nevik Retnuh....?” it comes out in a rushed whisper as I shudder and stare back into his eyes

And his eyes squint a bit in reply as answer and indicates the affirmative with the slightest nod of his head and then he reaches for me as I seem to suddenly lose my balance and stumble,

imperceptibly, his touch is unobtrusively —affectionate; he grasps hold of my elbow to steady me

“Why do you think he was following —you?” I ask

“Well because.... of a certain set of things I am now again in possession of ....”

“The safe! And the table?”

He hardly moves a muscle as he looks directly into my eyes; their vampire heat seems to dance there, deep within the platinum blue with some mad and wild flame

The dizziness of fear rushes through me and I reach for the feel of the stove to right myself to gravity



Electra’s dictionary; Spy in the house of love/strip poker Noir

 

“Red follows grey across the air,

    The waves of moonlight ebb and flow

    But with the Dawn she does not go

And in the night-time she is there.

Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old....” 

                         —from The Sphinx

By Oscar Wilde

—and in trying to read between the lines, sunk in the nebulous morass, later

....it is only when he is inside me that he says,

“you won’t tell me....”

he takes this moment to press this and .... to drive it in

to press the question .... 

and although I realize he is always rational, in moments like these I can feel something that he never usually exposes —but later I always forget ....this 

I suspect even as I know why now this should be true but —I suppose if it was not something I understood in myself that .... I could almost easily overlook this about him; this awareness 

but I do not answer.... partly because I am somewhat caught up.... in his motions and —partly because I use this for excuse to hide

what does his rhetorical question mean? only, this too I understand .... because there is always another conversation going on with Jörn.... the more important conversation .... the one that is never said aloud with words .... but it is always going on and is loudly somehow expressed .... in that intrinsic way .... that he has. I have found about him, it is all in his subtleties —oh, those subtleties .... how much goes on below the surface .... those mute suggestions that seem —on the surface— something that it is easy to wonder if it is something I have imagined— but .... as it is so constant about him.... I cannot make the mistake to ignore .... and so like a spy! to only wish to convey without ever having to admit anything 

again he says it,

“you won’t say....” and this time with a measured tone, coupled expertly with his calculated physical motion and with it, as well, the added touch of his mouth from behind my ear to my lips and only when he is granted the aimed response does he intensify his purpose until I am forced to answer 

“Why should I....? I don’t know what you mean....”

again —pressing— his advantage he says,

“you still don’t trust me,” but still it is not a question 

“It is not that ....” and only thus caught up within this aura he exudes, only obvious in coitus am I ever acutely aware of the rawness behind it which is easy to otherwise miss as he does not, by habit, let show

“No?” he asks

it is when I start to say, 

“you hide behind your spy persona—“ that he pushes me up against the headboard using his body to impale with the same calculations of practiced technique he does in everything— but now for his personal interest to cross examine; he  searches my eyes and it is only because I understand that hidden language of his kryptonite do I finally ..... see something unintended of a hint there exposed 

but I say,

“no —you— will not say....” only I am meaning something else and stare back at him knowing there is nothing between us —not here in this moment; as there is no way to hide myself; he knows every move to undo me—which he does.... more than once. And only after the third or forth does the resistance exhaust for me to finally say, “you refuse to acknowledge....”

“Acknowledge what?”

 “—that you need .... or even that I matter to you— to....”

a poet in a virtual world

like adverts on a train with eyes avert 

look not at the leer of the grim-reaper, casting shadows everywhere 

little lights that flicker past from some faraway train as it passes,

glimmer and ricochet the walls their whispers of hope

even though shuffled in invisible irrelevance, as thrown 

into this strange norm, what’s become the daily apathy 

here cast in a virtual overcrowded commuter train

On a virtual transit ride 

                                            ….to nowhere 

in a world unseen somewhere among the crowd lost

scrolled anonymous finds his message left on the virtual subway wall

…..and suddenly, much less alone 

so, with fingers pressed to fog a print replies her message on the wall 

in the fog

Electra’s dictionary; Scene Noir: sparring humor/hidden foreshadows (where life and dictionary overlap jm muse chronicles)

 

the pendulum of highs and lows seems to have blown all sails off course 

....it seems lately like I am standing outside of myself, watching from far away, even occupied in whatever the task being done—like watching myself from a surveillance camera.... watching with no connection....no meaning

I have been wishing I could hop a magic carpet ride to some other time or universe.... 

and now, on top of it all, am aware I have developed a new phobia of people; as in encountering —or being anywhere a mile near —to the point, I fear I am becoming something freakish, when before it was only shyness, now I think it is become something dangerously close to certifiable  

So.... it occurs to me now it has been a long while since I have been drunk or otherwise inebriated—maybe it is long overdue; perhaps it is time for a bender....

gripping the dictionary, Electra,  dearest, to hazard sense of present life ....dear dictionary....

*****

Jörn goes for an early run, and is gone for awhile.... doing whatever it is he does during those morning, mystery phone-call jogs; wearing the mobile headgear apparatus while having conversations around the globe .....shifting chess pieces, bit and gold bullion. Who knows what else 

The interruption of recent events of life which, on one hand, has kept him physically away but also in the other, with the preoccupation of other things, allowed me the excuse for the reconstruction of walls 

****

It is much later when Jörn finds me in the cage packing up and going through pending orders and seems surprised

“You’ve been busy,” he says as I notice he is still in his black ninja running clothes 

“It’s been steady. Paula is surprised,” I say

“Le Chevalier line?”

I stop what I’m doing and smile,

“not to brag.... eighty percent profit from last year, just by the addition of the new line.”

He comes over to look over my shoulder on the computer screen. I look up at him,

“I know you just wanted all this as a front for —well, whatever it is you do....” I say and try to read his expression 

He shrugs and straightens up before he walks around to look over the neat stack of packed up boxes of orders and turns to glance at the loaded conveyor belt,

“I’m .... impressed. I guess I never expected you to be so industrial....” he walks towards the conveyor belt to get a closer look, “....eighty percent?” 

“I’m used to keeping busy. Since we left the city, not having the Ethan estate to occupy myself .... it’s just nervous energy. Does it bother you?”

He turns to look at me from where he’s standing, across the distance through the cage door,

“why should it bother me? Maybe we should be partners,” he says lightly and walks back, “but I think your real talent is being wasted.”

“What’s that?”

But he just shrugs and comes over and says into my ear,

“by the way: you left the pantry trap-door open back at the barn-house. That is how I found you. If you want my plans of protection to be effective, you need to remember to —and make a habit of—closing it.”

“Oh....” I consider this....  “yes. I didn’t .... think about —that.... well.... it just suddenly occurred to me to use it as now I know how convenient it is to go between the barn house to the farm house ....” and look up at him .... 

as I realize .... not for the first time either.... 

the key to communicating with Jörn is always .... in his subtle hints 

he’s trying to tell me something 

he does not ever say straight out what he really means

But he does always say .... what he means .... 

especially when it is important to be said. But you have to search deeper for his meanings which on the surface is not always the obvious and not always clear 

but at the moment....I guess I am busy thinking about a million other things. Without really wanting to be thinking at all. Wishing, instead, that I could get caught up in some mindless distraction 

as if it were possible to turn off thoughts and redirect them that easily 

now leaning over me where I now sit to process a shipping label, “you’re miles away,” he says

“And you should talk? You who are, no doubt, deeply involved with the world’s game of chess .... hacking and hatching political schemes—I’m surprised you find the time to wonder about my mental mileage.” 

but even saying this exhausts me and feel the need to collapse into my arms and let out a heavy sigh, “I’m just wiped out....maybe it’s ‘long Covid’ or something, I don’t know....”

“Maybe you need your snack —what was it? Ground cacao was it— and honey? —you do know honey isn’t vegan.”

“You called me vegan— I never said I was....I just don’t eat things with families.”

“But you don’t mind robbing from the bees?” he asks. 

I know he’s teasing even as he keeps a serious tone and expression

“You think they mind?  —don’t you think they would fly away?” I ask and then say, “you don’t have to answer that. I know you think I have selective morality but beekeepers are helping to preserve an endangered species—and I know you also think my logic is crazy....”

He shakes his head, as he walks back over to look at the orders lined up on the conveyor belt, he seems to be holding in a laugh,

“When did I ever suggest you had selective morality?— or that I thought your logic was crazy?”

“Well you do. Don’t you? I can see by how you look at me—“ I say watching him

“How I look at you—?” he comes back over

“You’re doing it now—“

“You’re misreading me, then,” he laughs at me “are you sure you’re not projecting? I think I know what the problem is....” he leans over me and says something into my ear

******

as was before 

so does 

it now remain

more still 

the need of you 

contemplations in a world of plague; a hope for healing

(today’s fleeting reflection)

as Boccaccio and Dante referred to the Black Plague in their works, their reflective interpretations, seems to me, to have been tinged with their views of spirituality and humanity’s need for atonement. I do not pretend to feel secure of what is going on now in our world 

the sad reality is that life begins and ends and always has and —it is never equal how, nor how long each one of any living thing has ....and this has been the way since all existence of physical life. And, the spiritual realm, I dare to suggest, has the final say. And as we live, it is the brutality of life that we have to endure

 —and I guess I believe as long as there is the chance to reach outside; without; for a purer state, and strive to forge on, hopefully driven by something other than material greed —toward something higher than personal ....given the opportunity in the time allotted 

despite ....whatever the powers that may be present in our material world, as I really think all that is really just tedious stuff and nonsense.... 

were this a portal

 

for despite whatever the proximity, may well be another galaxy, 

how far away, the distant sea, would that communication bend