1. I.

Proem + ...

ONEIRIC

(DREAMER'S AFFIDAVIT)

DEAR:

“Motive, Dear

(pith of my pen),

You wander by my thinking every day. And every day, I contemplate your chasing. I am not ashamed to admit that I have fancied you in dreams; nor that I have talked to shadows which assumed your name and face. When(if)ever, yet, I have kissed them, then asked, ‘Good?’ they have always to me teased: ‘Certainly not, but very close!’ They ensured me that: ‘Your ideas are bad;’ and, ‘You should let me go.’ But I to them shone my shoulder--I ignored the best I could. My integral component, I suppose, was hope. Because: have not you found that bad ideas so often lead to such a sweet fruition?

This is sometimes true. So, with but a handful of my greatest hope… Spring I do! up and off my a*s. And jumble all my steps. And with tintinnabulation in my fingertips, I cough (Ug-uh-hem), as over-dressing into confidence, I call: ‘Hey! You gorgeous thing. Stop it RIGHT there!’ And over you lovely stare. And I continue through your curious eyes: ‘Perhaps consider a plebeians proffer?(Please!) do not stop before this poem’s read. I wrote this poem for you.'

Oui(?)

Be

You

With

Me

As

1

Is

We

: Know

We

Can

Take

(But

2

Would

Break)

A

Teen-

E

Tine-

E

Twine

To

Love

: Let’s

Journey

Whimsy

Follow

Fancy

Shameless

To Our

Marrow

: I

Love You

Baby

Crafted

Beautifully

But We is only with You

With Me

Co-

Inside.

:Now, I want to acknowledge the inappropriateness of my waylay.

I know, because I am a stranger, there are many things which I am not allowed to say. And I also know that if a stranger ambushed me, and said: ‘I love you! Oui?’ my first thought would be: ‘Who the heck are you?’ Then: ‘How am I going to say no?’

But, if hopefully you are calm (or(if)even I might seem the Boogy, still), here is the greatest assurance of all: Silence(if) is an understood ‘No.’ And, because I am a book: you can give me to the dumpster; you can send me back besmirched. You can stash me in your thoughtless; or bereft me of your shelf.

I am just a book ‘fore you, so I cannot pester you or sing to you, unless also you are holding me. Whenever you are not, I am waiting patiently until... I am ‘fore you travelled for you; for whyless; and for me. Because, what(deepest) I am is an author’s heart. And of that, there is no question.

But in case I'm asked to craft a reason, I would say it was because I happened on your (one day’s)wandering, and then fell into an augur-hole. Since, I wrote this story for you. And I hope that it enjoys you.

Geronimo and Gesunheit!

(Time to put away our fiddles.

A cappella on the cue!)

Sincerely,

Sometwo

(I’s which

love you).”

1. I.

(Click! and a “pen-pact” on particleboard.)

“Crazy’s good side’s

genius Bad side’s

nuts! so closely

disconnected But

no wonder why

which is which is

hard to fathom

It’s a key’s clink-

clinking which keeps

few of mass who

cannot wait They’re

not uncommon

or common to

strangeness being

coffee in the morning

or fantasies untrue

:Imagination’s future’s

only

hope

replacing what we thoughtless

more than

tope

now to That! deserves a drink

(clink!)”

(Quietude: some silence deep as thinking.

Click! and, scribble, scribble…)

“It is odd, but I profess: once I really loved these words. I loved them when I wrote them, but not for very long. (This is common a phenomenon encountered by trying writers.) And, after reading them over now, I’ve decided I don’t like them anymore.” The (esteemed)poetaster sighed. “Why is satisfaction like a magic trick?”

 

(The leafing of a page.)

 

“Disappointment is teaching me to ‘want less.’ But I am not listening. I am thinking, in fact, that Disappointment is crazy. For want is natural�"is one of our greatest natures. And wanting and becoming are two closely related things�"as when both are part of the same process. When you want something, you have that some thing to achieve�"in essence, you have a motive for all your actions. When your actions cannot contest�"or(if)even they exceed�"and the magic of that trick now only makes you sick, you should not compromise like everybody else…”

That was an exultation for David Boyd; and perhaps it felt quite good, but only for a moment. He was writing and musing in lonely stasis. And about him was a dark space that was his room.

“…I realize that I’ve kissed the a*s of many cigarettes (I’m rather intimate with them, really); I’ve kissed my mother and my father; and I’ve also kissed sadness�"figuratively, I’ve made very unpleasant love with it. Loving sadness is not fun; I have an unseen ring on my left hand’s finger because of it, and some adoration for my stubborn, flaccid phallus…

“And it’s easy to imagine every thing I want as though it’s perfect. Yet it’s against my better judgment that I often ignore my justified belief, which is: perfect is not real…”

His desk engaged a corner next his bed�"evolved only in the lumen of its bearing: a computer and a laptop; a television and some trinkets. David ensconced his focus on some open notebook’s deceitful mirror. And the television played shadows on his pimple-polkadotted pallor.

He was craned above his scribbling pen, when… his pen was suddenly lost. And David decamped some verse for thought; (in doing so)disclosed his pinstriped-green and long-lashed eyes. And a long jaw; cheek, and nose; his entire face was long. Emboldened by a pair of moustache eyebrows; decorated by some sandy pompadour; and a cartilage eight-ball in his swallow; altogether, wore now vacancy.

Deeper, however, was his active thinking.

Beings such as Human learn only through experience, through the experience of being taught. (This might not need to happen consciously…) And a teacher can be anyone or anything, animate or not, conscious or not. Even our natures can be teachers. There are other times, however�"amid the complexity and obscurity of our own unanswered mysteries�"when we are forced to scour our-self, and teach (and reteach) our-self our own truths.

Some of us are dreamers�"zoetic dreamers�"dream chasers. And some of us such dreamers will never shed that title. But, as long as we are dreaming(chasing dreams), the im on possible has to be removed; and the ful on doubt erased. Being dreamers(zoetic�"dream chasers), we are forced to try to remember the happiest lesson slept through. And, with many things including heart, make it an experience.

Dedication is an onerous teacher. And when you are trying to impress, even the simplest operation becomes difficult. In the particular case of some, trying to impress is a matter of assent; and dedication is a matter of isolation. You cannot sleep through dedication. And you cannot esteem yourself your aspiration. Trying to impress is not the answer to anything; it is in fact a mistake, a primary motive…

Realization noticed David’s thinking; and it censured thinking.

…But there’s no-moreover thinking, when ensconced in dark-, lone-, and laziness. There is nothing to do but to dither. Because, certainly(at this hour), you would never be able to sleep…

So, David consulted his close acquaintance, Internet�"the smartest friend he had ever esteemed thereas.

(Giving breath to her stillness, volume to her flatness, and a flame to her cold silver, was the simple idea of what she could do. She, who looked her best upon a luminescent platter such as Laptop, doffed instant gratification of any extraneous whim, which enamored an entire generation… There is hardly any long-term satisfaction to glean of instant gratifications.)

Yet he inquired of the Chinese zodiac calendar.

1996 was the year of the rat, said Internet, touting beside its ugly title attributes such as wit, independence, passion, generosity, and then there was ambition.

David “okay-nodded.”

The rat is truly an impressive creature: it is sociable, friendly, and surfeit with the energy which “true happiness” requires…

And, coupled with rats’ sociability is charisma, which directly compliments their probability of success. They are good actors and actresses, too, said Internet; and also, they are talented.

Flirting contrary to the pros of rats are the downers of selfishness, self-destruction, arrogance, greed, and jealousy…

David “okay-nodded.” But Internet was wrong in deeming him greedy.

So he scrolled down-way;

thought suddenly: S**t…

Because finding his repertoire of apparent and… oddly accurate “health risks,” was an enormous mistake.

This insalubrious list includes: hypochondria, drug addiction, psychopathy, bipolar disorders, anxiety, and gravity to major depression…

David scrolled away.

And Internet pitched the Four Pillars of Destiny to him:

They are also called the Four Pillars of your birth time, because they zoom�"such as microscopes with powers�"into the moment of an individual’s time of birth�"by year, month, day and hour. They are crucial in determining an individual… But they asked of one a stout belief in fate. And fate implied an unnatural universal perfection to David�"David, who by now established himself quite nearly an empiricist.

Nonetheless, he told that he was born in 1996, on the fourteenth day of June. And, as for the hour… he surmised on the instinct of a forgotten word, that it was probably three in the noontime.

Internet interpreted.

David waited.

And then, finally it declared: first, he is a rare yang fire rat. Secondly, he is a yang wood horse; then he is a yang water horse; and his “secret animal” is a yin fire goat…

But suddenly, Internet demurred, for conversing with David enervated it. (He was clueless, and he did not pick up anything which it spoke of.)

So what was the date today? he asked aside.

(He had forgotten.)

April 5^th, said Phone.

Oh, yeah. He hadn’t forgotten.

April 4^th.

David sighed.

2000 was the year of the golden, metal, or otherwise white, dragon…

Beside magnanimous read a panoply of adjectives starting with stately, vigorous, strong, proud, noble, direct, distinguished, self-assured, and passionate. (He had passion too. So the rat was similar to the dragon in some hope-filled sense. (?)) They were holistic side-by-side and juxtaposed with negatives such as tactless, demanding, rebellious, dogmatic, and violent. (?) Perhaps these were mistakes, in any case difficult to believe; and rebelliousness, well… perhaps there is something invigorating about it. (?)

Dragons, though… the implication carried in their title imbued a value beyond the extent of the remaining zodiac beasts… And (best of all), they are well compatible with rats.

And that was good to know. But it was also one of the most foolish things he had ever imagined. It was almost as foolish as lambent-learning Chinese legend. And David, at himself, almost even laughed.

Wishful through succorance, however, he continued his studies of the nonsense of Destiny a platter�"an ad hockery of yins and yangs and elements and creatures…

The first and second pillar stood same as the yang gold (metal or white) dragon; the third upheld the yin fire rooster; and the fourth remained (sadly) an impossible-to-glean secret. He wanted desperately to know. But David balked instead into hebetude; he addressed the contents splayed in the half-light on his desk. Thereon was contraband.

He unscrewed the cap to a device known as a “grinder,” exposing a mound of beautiful moist grass above the crystal-catcher; and then he grabbed his pipe named Twisty, and packed the bowl a “onzie.”

The lighter flicked orange and hot in the air close upon his face; and David held the choke beneath his finger, and inhaled the burning cherry. Then, withholding smoke, he rose and loped to the window, whereupon(the sill) he braced and exhaled through the interstice. He ashed Twisty in a golden ashtray and repeated the process, two, three, four times over.

Then he waited for it… and it happened nigh an instinct.

“Smokes!” craving called, and bumbled in his appetite. Otherwise thoughtless, it was only a matter of “When?” (Now?)

Yes. One of those dirty, old, fetid and fowl Canadian Classics, replete with innumerable Cancers and pathogens alike… please…

 

(Sigh.)

 

Whatever though. Desire is more to follow than knowledge. And he would quit as soon as he was told to. But not today. Because health was a desire he did not so much acknowledge in the nonce. And it was far too easy to tell himself he needed one right now. To avoid the impression of guilt or fear which comes from feeling the need for anything, he inserted and ignited, inhaled and then exuded, for the sake of desire, only.

But without desire, David hated that he smoked. (And perhaps this was true for everything.) He supposed the pleasure was aversion. And he could not stay focused on his writing when he wanted one. He wanted those great ideas he’d attributed to several ingenious cigarettes he’d smoked�"those that made him want to keep on writing and smoking.

Sometimes marijuana was a catalyst for great ideas. And so his brain made the mistake of connecting marijuana with imagination, imagination with colorful writing, and thus associated marijuana with colorful writing. This led him to the obvious conclusion that: marijuana helped him write better. (?) (David believed in anything holding such potential.) And depression was efficient for finding sad ideas…

Hitherto silent, his reflection in the window suddenly adorned that enigmatic, ghost-like quality of life�"of being alive. David shared thoughts with his reflection. He shared every motion to a majority stillness; and scrutinized his altogether public inappropriateness. His reflection was silent�"scrutinizing him. And, hollowly translucent, it would seem that it wanted to cry.

 

(Drip, drip, drip… the bickering of rain.)

 

David remembered Phone suddenly; and, blasted thing! it had lied to him earlier! Phone had said that it was April 5^th, but in actuality it was April 4^th, still… Stupid Phone.

He shook his head. But David could not be angry. Never on beautiful April fourth, which was an agonizing twenty-four(and sometimes more) hours for him. It carried over the mark on the calendar, which really didn’t mean much of anything. And it was a stimulant for the conjuring of sadly lovely memories, some real, some not.

Then he whispered by himself: “Today is her birthday… April fourth…”

She was fourteen years old today. Fourteen�"according to that stupid Roman calendar. And this was the craziest thought of all. It was mad(!): how fast he had spent and perhaps wasted these last three (certainly four) years. And it was mad even more(!): how quickly she was growing up. And soon she would be finished growing up, with a life and a man, and children and everything. All settled in, as “they” are apt to say.

 

(Pensive silence.

Sigh.)

 

Still, David moored into an inspiration gleaned of the sadness and blotting of stars by intervening cloud, when slowly rose a music of applause inside his cell.

Reverie yanked him four years into a time of “when”�"a first in an age of firsts.

 

Her first appearance occurred on a televised talent competition. She came as a shock as all beautiful discoveries do: marching bowed legs bravely through a fog�"bedight with grace in every motion; and genes in perfect place. And celadon eyes, more alike parrots; and a lithe frame swayed freely beneath her pink dress; and jewelry of diamond pendant earrings; and a butterfly necklace, sparkling gold… altogether: incroyable! It was a young and precocious sort of pulchritudinous, the kind young and imprudent boys might fancy.

“And who might you be, little lady?”

“Mirabelle Belrose, sir!”

“Mirabelle Belrose? Well, welcome to the show!”

“Thank you,” she said.

And her interlocutor complimented apropos her “pretty” name.

“Thank you,” she repeated.

“And where are you from, Mirabelle?”

“Providence, Rhode Island.”

“How old are you?” interposed another of the trio of judges.

“Ten years old.”

“Wow,” he said.

Everything about Mirabelle spoke in some odd and personal and universal way to you. Her smile told (then) of a modest expectation of awe, manifest by a murmur which propagated amongst the audience and judges alike. Her age, however, it did not seem to matter, for she was placidly beyond it.

In fact, there was some prodigality tacit in her presence�"something great betokened in that nervous, gamine sway and still, engilded hair. Yet in her deepest-deepest, obvious distinction, it was that sui generis, je ne sais quoi, which is the affectation of an individual. A tone in her “talking voice” seemed itself to hit an impressive note�"endearing to the listener. She shone a lacquer of perspiration; and she never stopped smiling. Adorable before her song begun, she was.

“And what do you have for us today, Mirabelle?”

“I’m going to sing.”

“And what do you sing?”

“Classical, mostly.”

And a sudden hush inferred surprise begotten of her audience.

“Well that’s new!” posited the judge; thence acquiescing the stage and a word of “Good luck.”

Mirabelle said “Thank you” once more�"(clapping)�"and made her final preparations.

So impossibly small she seemed, till forthwith bloomed an Italian melody. And Mirabelle Belrose started singing, moving with her voice, her hands.

 

Soprano sung her voice with lilt and vim

And tempo, pitch, Italian, perfect stressed;

A cappella trill of eternal trim�"

Resplendent talent, ears of Earth are blessed!

 

Paralysis bound one helpless when Mirabelle Belrose sang, emitting in each cadence the perfect note plucked of her entire understanding of the diatonic scale.

Some derivative silence contributed to her opulence, similarly as color contributes to the beauty of a flower. It entangled in one’s synapses a connection between opera music and herself�"perhaps anything and herself�"making her memorable.

Because her voice controlled and empowered you with a sort of mnemonic and mellifluous thrill, captivating as divulging. And Mirabelle was admirably ruthless! She sang and carried tessitura with her best: which is the highest beauty a sound might ever aspire to be(construed).

The audience roared, following their resolutions on what was and was not possible. And they must have found their vindications in that her genes began in the distant universe as stardust, or otherwise in piety. She demanded such an amazing explanation, that none was cared for, neither searched for, neither ever found.

And she amazed through and over their applause continuously�"amazed because she’s ten, but her voice was much older than ten. Her age was undeniable, but her talent was so immense that it inspired posies of disbelievers. Such disbelief, however, was truly a compliment�"a literal: “You are too good to be true,” when certainly, she was true.

So she marooned them all in a sort of stupor. Which, even for those who claim they’re heartless, almost made one need to cry.

(David needed to cry.)

Several tears(for appreciation) fell upon her last, triumphant octave�"fading into a cappella. A standing ovation assumed moral necessity. And as everything simultaneously was, so too were the judges in stupor.

“Whoa!” one immediately exclaimed. “You must have swallowed Luciano Pavarotti!”

“Did you?”

She laughed and said: “No.”

“Well, in the unexpected absence of breath, I think I speak on behalf of everyone when I say, first of all: Thank you. That was… incredible, really… And secondly: Yes! Mirabelle Belrose, you are adorable and talented, and we want to see more of you!”

 

(Everybody’s roar; tutti.)

 

“Thank you!” she cheered. “Thank you, thank you, sir!”

…And as the curtain fell upon her absence: “It’s incredible to me,” mooted one of the judges: “how she can be THIS mature THIS early, so as to make a song like that her own. And in Italian!” He simply gave up. “It’s amazing to me. It really is.”

It was amazing to many other people too, like a younger David Boyd, who watched through some fifth wall, from his living-room. He was confused�"still wrestling alongside the judges, with the inexpressible fact that she was (indeed) just ten years old…

And now she was fourteen years old… This was another fact he wrestled with�"because he was always wrestling with facts. And he found that trying to change them was a challenge.

But how had this been possible? (It is so absurd a thing! isn’t it?) How could it be that one was able (at the very least) to think that they’ve befallen love, never being loved before the same; and with experience no father than silence�"loving sadness? (How could one fall in love with a moving picture on the television, who was almost too young to be acceptably so, by him?) He did not know, except that he had, at the very least. And this was a fact he could not change.

So he whispered by himself: “Happy birthday… Babe, if I may…”

And then his ovation was over; psychological self-consultation was over. And dreams he dreamt a priori as always, ended in a quiet, longing chaos. But on the sanguine tips of notwithstanding(always) hopes, he sewed: “Maybe I’ll make it next year…” Because David cherished more his false realities than anything else, including reality.