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Whispers of Arias (II)

by Stephen Mead

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1.
Harbor 03:44
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Harbor So many lights out there upon pleats, The white tipped black lapping smooth----- This is our apartment now, how it feels, Such a strange space recalling all The packed boxes, the last objects… What’s left is open as a harbor is open: Echoes honoring the falling waves… I know how terrible need is, this distance Gaping with the intimacy of discarded Package string, tacks, tape… I know it unforgettably, The flow, Our cove’s slogan… But the way you were summoned, love, Was just as articulate. Nearby wait pirate ships. Tell them for me We are more than just cargo For the whole silky bay.
2.
Patrice 07:21
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Patrice (Thanks to Cocteau’s “The Eternal Return” based on Tristan & Isolde) Beyond being golden, an Aryan Innocence made rare… Beyond woods, fields, the untellable Pastoral to which you brought me Over waves, the graves of parents… I knew, like a sleepwalker I knew The dream of our days Would be shaken & torn… First a drunkard’s tempest came: The furious cognac flung to smash behind my head, His knuckles on the skull, twisting hair, Pressing down, the spilled liquor Mopping my face ‘til you stepped in. Patrice, even then I knew To escape would prove fatal, Though still I yearned, still I went along. Next there was an elixir, a love potion, the good intentions Of a friend twisted malevolently By the dwarf, Achilles’, unknowing fingers…. What of it, our luck, since it wasn’t poison Though that’s what the bottle Prescribed? It might as well have been, & us, Victims still, fortunate for the spell We would have felt anyway. How on earth to escape this---- When you meant me for your Uncle, When I signed that contract & its dangerous Terrain----- Two houses in one dwelling, a castle of cards Where the Queens looked away, & then privately Plotting, with menace, looked on? So we ran away, we ran never planning, We ran & I remember… I remember your hands in the warmth of evening Mist, the pond lapping, the frogs…& I remember Your bird call, the signal I woke to, delirious On the mountain where my husband Marc, Your uncle, came after, came after… Abandonment, betrayal----- Who but I could do it… Going. Going back as if hog-tied, Broken, your whisper now the seas’ Breath imprinting my mouth? For a month I felt it, hearing, bed-bound, A nightingale’s song. Was it you? I was moved to different windows & the walls of the rooms sealed me up like a shot glass. Drunk, I drowned & the business left only one Reprieve: to go where, wounded, You lay, the torment at last still, & gladly, for I am glad, Shipwrecked, Lie down. Natalie, your parents, like mine, are here, & are finished.
3.
Tschikovsky's Nina 03:13
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Tchaikovsky’s Nina I had many men, but not the man, Until him. What did it mean? Music sweeping over, the great Composed redemption, or so I hoped, Sending a letter, afraid… He replied, even wrote me an opera, The muse’s brew stewing us, rare Tender hearted onions That answered prayers pickled. Brother & sister. He said: Be patient with me. I lay beside him in our marriage bed Still waiting beyond what could not Be shook or understood. At least then, that’s how it felt. Later came Mother Menace, madness, The furies, irreconcilable, splitting The rift wider, & us cast adrift On those throes of liquor, laudanum, With me, ME!, now asylum housed Like his cholera-pocked Mom Still a symphonic plague. In between all that, yes, he still Had his good moments, inspiring Contemplation: sparklers in the hands Of children, a rising fireworks tympani While I, picturing this, here, confined To these bars after fighting for grub With the Others, here I am almost Equally sedate with this, This knowledge: We should have let everything be.
4.
Cassandra's Curse 02:51
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Cassandra’s Curse See the future. I do not fabricate. Your disbelief tears up truth, Casts deceptions from the wayside. If you could realize a torso only immortal In stone, re-piece the scattered limbs, Find discernment in the head’s graven look, Then you would be back on the right path Instead of trading denial’s alibis... Listen, remove the brackets, The censorship from my speech, the omissions You’ve camouflaged in identical uniforms... Here all is toga plain, the scroll of a shell, Its knowledge gently whispering Warnings of impermanence, but also Eternity’s winds... A storm has come & you are in it, You the sex of history & future deliverance. Choose wisely... But no, you are too narrow & in turn Raise your own children to be Mean & impoverished of heart. Though enormous with greed, they shall be lean with your shortcomings, & even as rulers Shall topple just the same
5.
He's My Fear 03:56
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He’s My Fear Fuhrer, Husband, Lover Man About the marrow, These towns that my limbs make... There’s such storehouses, homes Such depots and parks for which I am the reservoir, street-set, in The field his face is my sky of Down amid the ducts, The gun or the cyanide, Last bunker exits... Ashes, ashes, it is all planned, Is larger than the gassed Or those flares of ack ack When my heart was surely Its own alarm. Love is despair, sister, And he, the mad champion, The conqueror, pure and trapping As math, with his rhetoric charms. I fell as the whole nation did, Greedy to succeed... His accomplishments, his failure, Both my terror, and how, half-glutton, Half-deer, I took part in the woods, Blood black, the bloody slaughtering woods. Better to end with him And a coward’s courage Than face the world’s rubble of our dreams About our necks. Better, my fear swore, But I see he’s just a man here And that the real god’s this capsule I swallow, unafraid now, Yours always, Eva Braun, I write, sister
6.
Urgency 04:01
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Urgency Seduced me, The music reaching veins, dopamine, Violins in a rhapsody for the violence I later dreamed as sirens repeating the rhythm Of remembrance, the instinct of reaching, Crawling across the trunk halfway to where help Stretched, another hand, its suited sleeve, Security that man at an arm’s length… How helpless too he was I later realized between the shots & the skidding Car, a pinball machine’s frenzy where my husband’s Shattered grace bled on, a font of scarlet, Streaming streaks to lean that way, this, & crumple against me… Amazing I was not grazed Except inside, an explosion of lasers Constantly entering my poise, my voice, The eternal shaking for assassins & conspiracies I detach from like a graft whose tissues, invisible, Nevertheless ask: how, love, why?
7.
Danny 04:42
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Danny Were prairies crossed, forests or What’s left of either? Amid reactors, did you seal-steal Or coast-flit, an egret, with tar Coated wings? The minefields, the mines… Danny, what caused these scars? Hypocrisy confronted? The intimidation of clubs? These marks are now your uniform, The valiant vulnerable skin Still there, & we shall wash, Let the emblems have health Or the nearest possible thing. More than surviving, war’s other Meaning must be your grin, your Arms, the valuables, each resource An ozone layer with little burning pricks… Map pins for oil, for the disputes, Territorial, for the dumping, the vapors… What fire has the flag of your cacki put out Scorched to the chest? The flames, their imprint, that shield now Is peeling gauze. It’s a tattoo in reverse. It’s an entrance which hands, the face Coming close can only hope to console so The come ye back, The sunlight, the shadow knows That you did, that you made it. Look Danny, you’re here.
8.
Exultance 05:41
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Exultance Clip clop, clip clop----- the blue cobbles are ringing & the Belgian block wood in this time, this city, this night, these hansom bells our century’s angelus. Footman, you of the liveried, what is to be destined? What foreshadowing under each shod hoof & from clanging harnesses, the motion whipped manes? Are they Russian or Clydesdale, these pliant giants so docile but with loyal speed for each royal riding Anastasia on the run into vanishing gas lamps, the intrigue of history’s rhythm? Black nostrils of might breathe fierce white mist, heat exhaust disappearing through too pure snow flakes. From the distance they seem like stars, & other sleds are schooners skating on the river ice of every road... Surely slaughter shall not follow this, the skeletal scars of our foundations already speaking of the looted art, the burned books, the entrail-spilled conflict between need and greed. Surely the wars that brought us to this place of candlemas shine in all these buildings shall not harvest shed blood, (will they?) in the evermore. But, shush, says gloved driver, taking one hand from the reins, one hand laid on my hand, lifting it gently to cover my mouth. It will take us each our whole lifetime, he explains, and many more, to recover from our lives, but, listen, clip clop, the bells anyway ring.
9.
Rings 07:11
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Rings The first thing was voices after what was fathomed as pain. Perhaps that was just the impact and worn off shock. Sure, those makeshift handcuffs hurt but not as much as the fear, a migraine’s pistol whipping though they only brandished their real guns. Damn my pounding head, those nerves inherited from Mother, when the hijacker’s accents actually, if at a lower pitch, could have seemed melodious. Who wrote this libretto I am still singing the evaporative words of here? It is an aria smoke-choked, the fumes of fuselage crashing in the blast’s ash as no composed timpani I would ever choose to be a part of any more than a frantic mourning dove, cathedral-trapped, in eaves of screams, the vortex wind of splinters, a mass of wings bleeding, broken to black. Unaccountably, following afterwards, veils of such silver began to spiral, to glass-sparkle. What moth motes we were then. What disoriented unbound antennae and mouths suddenly without gags. Atoms lost limbs but became flesh of some other, became atoms without boundaries calling for faces to name us though they be bat-blind as moles. If you found me would I know it? Would touch recognize touch? Love, as a roar, all sensations rain until silence seems a sense. We open from it as mast-flapping sails. We open from it through shafts of cones where once two towers stood. Circling further, circling endless above this, invisible yet years beyond, invisible but within grasp we visit as sighs of light, as absence amid presence to shadow the threshold of what no longer is and be entrances still.
10.
now, in this stillness 03:37
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(now, in this stillness) the slow moments of grace are brimming----- the i.v.'s drip, the egg shell ceiling turning from blue to purple, & you, small bird, a held hand or tear, involuntary, to wipe recollecting salt as eucharistic blood, salt, the valley we come from God looking through Into us, the glass goodness We each are, especially you, You still with a younger woman's Porcelain skin, your gown an off The shoulder's elegance Where the triple lumen is stapled & the translucent hues of your wings do not show through the blankets for bathing swaddled by something tender & fierce. Our eyes look up, find the window, Signs of continuance: cloud shadows going over, An occasional starling through distant Stirring steeple bells, These spring reminders of you & Dad Bowling in love's square dance Since for death, we could not stop. Death, old ageless friend, Come sit down now, Tell us how to eat, sleep, breathe again
11.
The Secret Marriage 07:27
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The Secret Marriage Leaving the odd flat Quartered like dorms By a hallway where neighbors pass, I slip onto the street. Upstairs my roommate snores, Dozing face up, good, platonic & strong. What a soundscape to picture: the rain-stained Sagging ceiling which threatens, every day, To drop tiles, & her form, a mound of covers, Dream-bound, undisturbed… Out here the breeze picks up sirens. I hear the whole city breathe. Sleepless native, I’m wandering again in my old Detective green trench coat, among the nights’ Restless armies, insomniacs only, other corner Store cigarette buyers, this 2 a.m. shift of moon Addicts craving solitude’s fuel… Now how quiet, so quiet, seems every Thing. Hansel of the crumb paths, I am followed By cats, an assortment of shadows & trees lost Like docks where nobody moors… To meet you here isn’t timing, no coincidental Influx of the planets, but plan, pure passion’s strategy. The wind brings white bags, shreds of newspaper sailing. My coat unfurls, wraps over your leather. It’s funny. There should be waves & gulls flapping by while you pull Hair from my lips. Instead, we get dense pavement, glistening Telephone cables & kiss formally, a pair of soldiers in silhouette. Our vows are made from such things: Hardness & refuse converted to electric refuge. But love, it’s cold, so cold. The shiny windows of these houses Strangely gape, mirroring a huff which could blow our hearts in. Quick, here’s the downtown train, that anonymous ferryman. Take me to your cellar, cross the threshold & to your bed.
12.
Windhcimes & Dream Catchers 01:46
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Wind Chimes & Dream Catchers How will time find us? The recorders of history? Dearest, here on this very private island The waves are our scriptures &, At dawn, the air has enough lavender. Feathers & shells we hang in a web Of sinew glistening with dew. Such soul-bones, such bird-hollow music The breeze picks up Brass & bamboo smooth… Listen. Listen. Bells of reverie, this, & our coast, eternal.

about

“Whispers of Arias”, Volume Two, picks up the Ariadne thread of Volume One to bring the listener further through a
compelling musical maze. Indeed, conceptually, the two CDs could easily be combined as a double-set.
Again there are voices both historic (Eva Braun), and from legend (Cassandra), while the themes of love, loss, war, and perseverance remain Universal. Again Kevin MacLeod’s instrumentation provides a haunting display of colors, ranging through a palette which could come from both Weimar Republic cabarets (Liebestraum), to Gregorian choral chants,(Rites). Whether exploring the legacy of 911 (“Rings”), or the passing of his own mother (“now, in this stillness”), a sense of human frailty and struggle for dignity remains vibrant in Stephen Mead’s explorations, and, although defined as whispers, perhaps ultimately something of spiritual truth will come through for the listener in these esoteric songs.

credits

released December 24, 2012

Musical backdrops provided by Kevin MacLeod, incompetech.com, make each piece a journey unto itself. To be human is to know how valuable life is, these songs seem to say,
and will hopefully leave the listener emotionally transported by that message.

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Stephen Mead Albany, New York

A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are at all interested please place his name in any search engine in conjunction with any of the above-mentioned genres for links to his multimedia work and merchandise. To order CDs via VISA or PayPal please visit stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com ... more

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