the mystic sun

Jörn does not speak often about the strangeness of the bond between us. Almost as if he assumes it is something that is understood

 but I believe his opera is his way to express this

He is too rational a person to speak about these things but sometimes I wish he would. Life is so fleeting and moments go by in a blink. Some moments you never wish for again

but others are gone before they ever got to happen and then it is too late

I write from my phone from the gallery alcove above that faces diagonally to the wide, open, living-room, space below

But I face the window and watch the leaves fall with my headphones on to tune out the voices of conversation that trickle up from downstairs —between Lisa, Andreas and Jörn that I know I would likely not understand but I am sure the tones would tell me enough

So, again, I watch him from afar, it seems, absorbed in his world .... like an artist’s task, penning scenes of his life in my dictionary; occupied with the theater of my muse

Josef and Elsa have gone driving locally exploring the autumn foliage on an audio tour they discovered on some app. The Adirondacks are beautiful now; like a travel postcard; everything brilliantly yellow ochre and alizarin crimson



but I think of this morning.....

*****************************************

“I had to come back for you,” he says

only he says this to me in sleep or maybe it is half sleep

an early light seeps into the room with us. I am turned to him in sleep; pulled inside his warmth within the circle of long limbs and I find I cannot move, caught in his fingers that hold my skull, his fingers tangled in my hair. He unconsciously grips and then releases, creating a symphony within my head of his touch and by how he breaths I know he is not awake

I don’t know if he is aware of what he says but he says in a deep, soft voice,
“I was to late that time so .... I knew I had to follow you....”

if his words did not make sense to the dream I just awoke from I would not find the relevance

because I dreamed again of the little hut and the smeden .... the blood and the hides and watching the firelight die beneath the forge .... and....  he held my head this way.... the same way he does now

when I left him ..... when she died in his arms

I dreamed again

all the blood everywhere, all over his white hides .....how he never let go, and how he stayed that way long after going cold ....and remember how hard it was to go and to leave the sight of him, to long to be near him that lingered


You see, this dream —these dreams of the pirate, only ever seem to surface while in extreme duress of danger or emotion —when something in the present life is in deep turmoil

or— just triggered when we first met when it seemed like every night we had the dreams

  ....like some voice that recalls, it surfaces when it seems all hope is lost

“Follow me from where?” I ask him holding back a sudden sob

absently he caresses my hair, his fingers comb through, he says softly with heavy regret,

“I was too late....”

And the weight of remorse feels nearly oppressive; like a burden


And it reminds me more of other things.... details from somewhere.... like always watching for the sun, searching

and there just beyond .....the hut apart from the other houses with memories of the thought of his scent on the hides when he was away ....the hut beyond; a small shrublike grove that faced the sea....

But he was too late

he should not have gone .... I know from dreams.... because  of the fear for the maimed warrior lord

.... this dream we had tonight

that is when he said he would “be back before the midnight sun”

But he should not have gone

“I had to follow you....” Jörn says this again and breaths slowly, “....min lilla duva.... you were the angel that appeared like a dove.... I couldn’t let you go again.... why did you go?”

I try to look at him. Try to move my head. But I am caught in his grip; his fingers tangled close to the scalp and holding my skull caught and cupped in his hand

what does he mean?

“I could not let you go back to this place alone but —what was the chance I’d ever .....”

“What?” I ask confused

“What?” he asks in reply but still grips me

“Ever —what?”

“....find you.....!”


“....Find me?” I ask and now try to angle or move my body to turn to see his face but he is much stronger and keeps his hold on me as I struggle to free

which now is what seems to wake him and he releases his grip of my skull, his hands absently move down my body, as he sighs so deeply that it vibrates warmly as he pulls me to him,

Only I realize he’s still between dream because now he says,

“....I told you I’d be back before....”

but then now he wakes up

he takes another deep breath but it is more ..... like someone stabbed; like a kind of grunt and his arms go tight around me like a vise,

“.... the midnight sun.”

the desert of j’adore

“It’s you that I adore .....

lovely girl, you’re the murder in my world 

Drinking mercury 

To the mystery of all 

that you should ever leave behind 

in time 

you’ll always be my whore 

you’re the one that I adore....”

—-‘Ava Adore’ lyrics by Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins album ‘Adore’


https://youtu.be/yzVQT5EgDpw


there is a moment when you try to reach through in dream to confront the bogey man

but sometimes another dream enters and the dreams overlap

Dr. Rothschild used to say it was a ‘defense mechanism’

the same reason why I have blocked memories ....because it is more than the waking mind is prepared for

But I have found that over the years the veils that kept me safe from their being recalled have worn away to thin and ....

suddenly in the middle of a day the awareness of what it hid is fully realized —and they seem —incomprehensible

....those moments when you stumble

     those moments when you understand why a tea kettle might suddenly combust

then crumble

My objects mean different things

      especially in dream —like blood

not always a purging; it is sometimes just more of the side affect of trying to dig it out


but more often than not, the manner to prove I am tougher than pain;I do not feel pain; I do not feel ..... I do not feel anything and nothing gets in

I do not feel

Nothing gets in—I do not feel

only I am never prepared for hypothermia

Such as now

I have wandered outside I realize and barefoot and cold whether I feel it or not —every part of me is shaking as I try to walk towards the house

sometimes you detach


The first memory, the first image of the memories.... I ever had of the pirate was on the beach.... the cold frozen ground and gray light with the wind and looking up at him. It was not the first memory but the first memory I realized..... but it was his eyes and how he narrowed them against the wind....

and exactly how he looked at me —with claim..... like how Jörn looks at me when no one is around; when he adorns me and dresses me —like the strange and erotic way he washes me

only....  it is the feeling like I have known it before—with him; have known him before ....like his fingers when he handed me coffee that day, now so long ago, in his kitchen

—I remember the way his fingers had brushed across my hand that caused me to look up at him suddenly and then I saw it there..... that first time because

I became aware of the den inside his mind, because it was familiar and had to be the reason why we became lovers before we even knew each other; because we already knew each other .... it seemed


“I’m going to put an alarm code on all the doors,” he says now, “—put your arms around me, min lilla duva.”

when I realize we are outside and that I have been dreaming

in between dreaming

....he wears a wool trench coat over warm flannels and he pulls me inside his coat with him

Virgil

Stain



It is because I dream a bad dream. It is a disturbing dream. Like one of many .... I fear sleep because of this

the dreams haunt me always



“I don’t want this....”

     ***

and so I go and search the closet

I look for something clean. And then pace back and forth to the sink in the bathroom to the medicine cabinet .... i search and search for something ..... because it never goes away


There is a loft gallery where the upper floor rooms face out and at night all the bare windows downstairs scare me. The windows are so dark. They have a million eyes. Their faces are skulls

Barefoot on the floor I am silent through to the kitchen where there is a door and so I go because they chase me

I seek the familiar; the earth and throw myself down

and as always the only place that I ever feel safe; next to the earth with the trees to watch over the water

to watch over the water .... to wait for him

the hands that pull her from the water because he brought her back.... and dried her hair with the hides and made her clean again

skulls & body language; shower conversations

I am still in the corner of the shower on the floor where the water hits; bent like wavegirl ....as hot as I can take it....seeking some intangible sense for safety

The warmth of the shower water, it is safe; it is like arms that hold and keeps the world away and melts the saline tears.... cleanses the shame and everything that I am —is removed; is void of this world

I don’t hear the bathroom door open; then the shower door, as the draft disturbs just before I hear his voice

“.... min lilla duva....” he says as some chill air enters with his intrusion “....it was a thoughtless joke,” he says

“What was....?”

“Lisa....”

“Oh..... “

I hear the movements he makes as he discards what he wears before he comes into to shower stall with me

“Please stand up from the floor,” he says as he crouches down to me on the bricks of stone tiles, “why are you down there like that?”

I shake my head and don’t want to move. I put my hands over my face

I say,
“no,” and shake my head

“Please stand up,” he says

“No—please let me alone,” I say this but not loud enough for him to hear over the water and shake my head

“Snälla....” he whispers against my ear and I feel his hand go around my shoulder as his other hand goes down my arm and finds the raw flesh from the pumice; it makes me bolt as he presses into the flesh. “What are you doing to yourself?” he asks me now and his voice belies his frustration along with something else I don’t recognize .... and he seems to become worn of his patience,

“get up off the floor,” he says this like a demand but I am not in the mood to listen. I block him out instead. Press my head into the shower wall with some impact like a bang. He shouts at me in Swedish but I don’t try to understand but then he says, as if pleading now, “the bear is gone as well as the deer skull.... duva! It was a stupid and childish thing for her to do. Everyone is angry at her now for it.”

“I don’t care,” I say and shake my head

“Yes you do.”

“No. I really don’t, Jörn—I am so used to people doing things that —maybe— are kind of mean but —it doesn’t even register with me. I don’t even think I notice any more.”

“Well.... you may say that but it is not ok with me.... I don’t think I understood before why the skull bothered you so much,” he says over the water that comes down over us

I think about his words but then instead say,

“Jörn.... she just doesn’t like me.... and I know they don’t either,” I say

“No, that’s not true—look at me, duva, I want to see your face,” he takes my hands from where I press against my eyes.

He makes me look at him when I try to avoid his direct gaze.... but I don’t like it; it makes me feel like an idiot. And I mumble something to him. Still he keeps me there and puts his hand around my jaw to hold me steady, “please stand up from the floor; I cannot watch you do this to yourself,” but it is the intensity within his eyes as he blinks away the water that clump his blond lashes together, an intensity that burns with that kind of supernatural kryptonite that he has that is like some superpower. That all-seeing, all-knowing ageless wisdom like that of a soul that has haunted for lifetimes.

But now he pulls me up off the floor, and lifts me to stand and presses me against the stone tile wall of the shower as he stares into my eyes. I watch his turn red around the gray/blue slate that can go from cool to hot with lightning speed

“Stand up,” he says this even as he lifts me, pressing me into the wall and holds me up,

he raises me up above him, raising me slowly until I am lifted high above him so that he is looking up at me....

he holds me there above him

it is blurry with the water and without any visual aid to see ....

only I see him clear.

I see him

and what his eyes say

he presses me into the wall and puts his mouth on me, and with the water and the mist he kisses my skin as the water runs down; he licks along the trail of water and where it goes

and I forget the nightmare from last night,

I forget the family chorus outside the bedroom and even the deer skull

and reach for him, and tangle my fingers in his hair and pull myself to wrap my arms around his neck, wrap my legs around his hips and move to grip him to take him to me as this need to join to his body washes over every other thought; I say into his ear, I say.....

but no.... this I will not say ....not here anyway

a day for the races; Electra’s dictionary (jm muse chronicles)

“Pushing through the darkness
Still another mile....

“I have a dream
A song to sing
To help me cope
With anything .....”

——lyrics from the song ‘I Have a Dream” by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaenus



—————————————————

It is in the morning, today that I get up before everyone to make coffee when I get a random text from Gerald asking
<how is Jörn’s opera going?>

<Have you had another dream?>I text him back

<They have been consistent the last few months but I have been getting other ....well—signs>

<wow, what kind?>

<It’s to do with his work... as it is to do with you... just know he has to .... it’s hard to say as I don’t want to read into anything and think it’s best just to say.... this work is about something else something bigger than just two people..... than.... well— that it seems more than just ....  art. It is about something necessary but I’m not sure why—only that I don’t usually get these kinds of signs so— I wanted to ask you if he is still working on—is it an opera?>

<Yes!!! Now his family is involved and they are working on it too..... He has been almost obsessed with it!>

“Oh, good....”

“Good?”

“Yes.”

*****************************************

when you deny yourself of an emotion

you start to question everything you feel and

are soon detached from ‘the self’ —and no longer trust yourself nor your gauge of reality

to live in denial of one’s own personal reality

You doubt your own observations

Every experience and emotion you ever have....

you question if it really happened

Along with the concept of having

The .....rights

that I was not entitled

that life

Forced to live

the lies; like fibers on a loom that ties and binds you

where does the anger get released..... where does the anger go..... what logical  choice of violence to resound and rebound upon the self that it already has beaten should it seduce to martyr its everlasting Celf?





“They had the dimensions wrong,” Lisa says when I ask about the furniture

I watch as a different crew of truck people arrive to remove half the furniture

“Some were in metric and some were ....” but she does not bother to finish her sentence

“I have an idea,” Elsa says suddenly coming over to where I am cleaning up the morning plates; she rests her hand on my arm and she says, “Josef and I noticed there is a nearby farmer’s market and they are having a harvest celebration with pumpkins.”

I find it odd somehow that she would want to tell me this, expecting a catch

“Lorenzo and Lisa will be doing their photo shoot all day here so we would like to explore,” she tells me.

“Oh that’s nice,” I tell her

“Oh, you are coming with us,” she says

“Oh good,” Lisa says, “this way Jörn can help with the furniture here without being distracted with D—“

“Oh he’s coming too!” Elsa laughs and tells me, “we need to pick up things because we are going to make jordgubb rabarber paj,” she goes on to say

“Where am I going?” Jörn asks when he hears his name and walks over from watching the furniture men get too close to his piano

But then Lisa starts a conversation in rapid svenska and I take it as a not so subtle hint to mind my own business ....and clean the kitchen.

They don’t notice when I slip out after to find my way to the shower

It is on my way as I walk through the bedroom to the en suite that I stop and look at the bed and jump with a start

It’s the deer skull propped on the pillow and below it is the severed hide of a bear with its giant head stretched across the length of the bed

I don’t hear Jörn come in but I hear him curse in Swedish, “skit,” and go right to the bed to grab both off (my side of) the bed, “Leeeeeesaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!” he bellows and drags björnen behind him

I just go and start the shower .... sit at the bottom and pull inward into a ball
*************************************************seep
let the water beat me....as I sink deep into thoughts

six cervical vertebra they line up like the strangulating width of a large hand’s grip; like a collapsed accordion; crushed herniated in a descriptive bulging line, portraying a crime

Like left fingerprints at the scene of a crime. If you measured it, the evidence would read like a confession by the murderer. Like a signature or autograph claiming a victim


.....and so I find myself turning inward and ....

   turning also to that vague and distant memory of a father I once knew.... but was told I must never recall

because it was always his conviction in my mind’s ear that I have heard through all these years.... because, father.... I think I have lost .... the power to believe ..... I beseech you to send your beacon for the light is fading fast
————————————————-

in my spine

seven bone spurs between

they are sharply progressing into the neural sack.

It claims the sensory reflexes and administers it’s pain ruthlessly with no expectations to ever let go its grip

It pervades and eternally breaks at the last lingering of daylight’s faith

out damn spot; out haunting

....I wash and I wash —

but it’s still under my skin.

I realize the thing I need I left outside. It was because I set it down when we looked for where the hose is outside —was it the bucket I need.... no

it was her game. And she was a bully. But what did they tell him?

Only it never comes off your skin. And then the spiders crawl in which is why it is so necessary to keep washing it out

“Oh shit!” because I realize I am outside and it is the middle of the night

I hear my name said from behind me

At first I can’t remember whose voice that is. I startle when I feel the water from the spout turned off

“What have you been doing?” this same voice asks me

It’s cold outside. I realize the bucket overflowed and that I am soaking wet

“Come into the light....” he says and pulls me to where the outdoor lights go on when you walk by them.

“What have you done?” he asks me

“What?” only now do I realize I’m dreaming because the tone of the man’s voice seems alien to my real life

But he says,
“we should put something on that right away.”

I look and notice I have been washing my skin with a pomace stone and at first I am more disappointed that the stains are still there than I am about the blood

“Why does it still show?” I ask because usually everyone understands your thoughts when you are dreaming

“Let’s go inside, I have something for that,” he tells me

 I wake up from the dream

“We should go inside,” he tells me

but I find I do not have the impetus to move


“Oh....” I sigh looking into the still pond

It is a moment where nothing is said.

But so much is said.



“Are you cold?” I ask him

He reaches for my arm,
“why don’t you help an old man inside?”

we start to walk but he stops for a minute

and whatever it is makes him scratch his head thoughtfully as he looks at me as if he is seeing me for the first time. But then he smiles and leads me back towards the house

Of a haunting pirate

“And she calls to him:

‘Let the waste
Cross the ancient trails to you
Far out
Beneath the sorrow clouds

Let them taste
The bitter, lost mistake of you
Let them cry out
Through your rusted scars....”

—lyrics by Billy Corgan from the song ‘the Tale of Dusty and Pistle Pete’ by the Smashing Pumpkins from the album ‘Adore’


As I watch the moon tonight I think of Raoul and the burden of his soul

why should it carry through life times.....

the day that the pirate killed her mother happened two summers before the day he saw Elan on the beach and followed her to the market

even though she had seen it happen that day she did not know it was the man who faced her that day at the market.... she had been up on the hill overlooking the beach because her mother told her to run

and then she saw it happen from the distance

he had seen the girl running .... but it was not Raoul who butchered Elan’s mother. It was because it made him remember what befell his own family, that he stepped in and killed the woman quick to end her slow torture by the men as she had fought back.

But it had been the heavy pendant crescent moon that she wore made of silver that made him later recall the woman he had killed because ....he took it from her. 

When he discovered on the boat that Elan wore the same kind of crescent moon that had been hidden within the folds of her woad blue robes, he knew a moment of guilt and shame

In this way we may begin to understand the weight of this burden he must have then felt. And how it must have been such a guilt to germinate within him such a heavy sense of anguish of responsibility; 

a kind of debt

which could carry within a soul long through many lifetimes 


https://youtu.be/X7Bnp_Znp9M