PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

by

David Arthur Walters



A room changes with the emotions of those who occupy and move about within it, carving its space into dynamic images indicative of their moods. Even after the vault empties, somehow unbeknown to us the moods linger on, haunting echoes, invisible reflections of what happened there, memories of events  that spring from the unknown, innermost chamber where feelings live and are given their being. More often than not those motives seem to have a will of their own. In spite of their misery, even the most miserable members of our lot live on in awe of that nearly indefatigable, indefinable freedom within.

There are, of course, exceptions to the will to live. I recently dreamed of Art, my late best friend who died by his own hand. In my dream, and although I was dreaming in Hawaii, I called Art from a pay phone in Manhattan. As we conversed, I knew he was alive and well. However, much to my frustration, it was impossible for me to find his address so I could visit him in person.

Art's voice in my dream was real. Our conversation was genuine. How could that be? And, since he was really alive, how could he then be an exception to the will to live? Ghosts seem to have a will of their own.

Is a ghost, an apparition, a virtual image unreal? No, for if that were the case, none of us could appreciate Art. Or, for that matter, a rainbow that exists for the pot of gold at one end or another. Or any other of the so-called illusions of life.

Of course, we may trace the content of a 'mere' dream back to its source in waking life, yet we cannot know why or how one source was selected over another. Although its essence is inscrutable, we know the will is no random exercise. If anything, it is magic. Yes, indeed, somehow the moods linger on of their own accord in the changing room, where even illusion and delusion is part and parcel of reality, where death is a mirage, and where life is a pretense.

A pretense? Then why do we go on creeping in our petty paces if life is a prevarication?  By the magical operation of that will of which I speak. I am that entity scrawling symbols across the pages of my life. Between how I be this way or not  be at all is an ineluctable mystery, despite the prevarications and allegations of the pseudo-sciences to the contrary. Please rest assured, however, that I have invented good reasons for beating around the bush and being, at first glance from the perimeter, vague and nebulous. I do take the optional excursions within this great detour called life on Earth. Yet, on the fundamental plane of existence, when I answer for myself I answer for you. For I am a collection of yous in a form common to our nature. You may consider me to be an imposter or an imitator, but our differences are frauds. We are one. No one is dead. We are all here and now forever.

I could stop here but I will not, for I want to ramble on as to why I do not do away with myself forthwith. Because I love to dance. Dance is my reason. Dance is the foundation of all the arts, of which writing is my favorite.  One must reason to write, and some say there is a big difference between reason and will, or reason and passion. Well, reason is my passion, writing is my dance. Stuff comes out and my job is to make it smell good. I like to dance with my head, so to speak. I like to polish the movement of apparitions. I like to translate feelings into living concepts. For me, writing is an adventure, a quest for some understanding of the unknown causes from which thoughts themselves spring. It is an Odyssey for its own sake: the end is an excuse. I'm like the Rom, the "Gypsy" who goes outside and sits in his car in the driveway when he feels restless but is unable to take a real trip at the moment.  I'll drive with any subject, take on any passenger in my craft. I don't care what my article is "about", whether it has a point or gets anywhere besides where the muse takes me. I fly from Love to Love for Love's sake.

My dance begins and ends in a changing room on an island in the midst of vast, turbulent seas. The intentional translation of my passions is the consequence of those passions. My alternative is to swim out in the ocean to the edge of the world. Who understands me? Who understand why I must keep moving just like the comedian who tried to get happy free-basing, accidentally caught himself on fire, then ran burning down the street for his life? So I seek to express that inexpressible frantic urge for life. That is the reason for my being: to give full vent to the qualities of a beloved I will never completely know. And most fortunate is my fatal ignorance, for Love does not abhor a secret.

Even as I speak, Poseidon smiles as I dance confidentally on land, beckoning me with his trident to enter his watery realm. His call is appealing: is not my body mostly water?  As I skim along the surface, I am unaware of the submarine expeditions of his surreal amphibian monster, who leaps occasionally from the sea to bring rain to Paradise.  Never mind that. I'm not a trained diver  therefore, Poseidon, hear my slight plea., hear this plea for a favorable wind to blow me wherever I  am bound to be. Accept this plea as my offering to your dignity. If honors follow, they shall be my tribute to your power to stir up the best in me.

What? A breeze? Yes, a breeze. A gentle tropical breeze now takes me to a dance concert at the Jones-Ludin Dance Center in Hawaii. "Coincidence or God?" Hence here I am in a changing room, a dance studio. The program for the evening is entitled 'Changing Room'.  Enter modern dancer Karen Miyake to perform a charming, tragic dance caress called 'Broken Flight'.

Karen kept her dance very close to the black vinyl floor she skillfully used to accentuate and complete her designs. Even her slightest movements conveyed a larger-than-life sense of a flight broken and a grand pathetic struggle to recover. No technical artifice was noticeable, just the natural movement of an animated creature whose flight is broken, not all at once but ever so gradually and painstakingly. Yes, it's the little things that are important, the little touches that make the heart leap for joy, and with sorrow.  

I was transported by Karen's dance magic;  she rendered the invisible truth visible. In the sorrow of the broken flight I was ecstatic in the sublime truth of its expression. How does one elicit such an apparent emotional contradiction in an audience by means of the same motion? Yes, we must know the context. The same word can have different meanings, but opposite ones? And here we speak of emotions, a much smaller vocabulary to draw upon. Another modern dancer, Isadora Duncan, addressed the question as beautifully as she danced, when she said:

"Only twice comes that cry of the mother which one hears as without one's self: at birth and at death. For when I felt in mine those little cold hands that would never press mine in return, I heard my cries: the same cries I heard at their births. Why the same? Since one is the cry of supreme joy and the other of sorrow, I do not know why, but I know they are the same. Is it not that in all the Universe there is but one great cry containing Sorrow, Joy, Ecstasy, Agony, the Mother Cry of Creation?"

Indeed. And 'Broken Flight' had that Unity of Motivation which does not merely interest the curious: it fascinates them and brings them into the "other" world where there is no changing room: nothing  changes "there".  Because our perceptions and conceptions require differences, and because belief is the gradual perfection of knowledge, we might believe the other world is nothing at all. But our appearances as ghosts as well as our ability to will something from nothing belie that notion to death.

I felt another breeze in my face this morning as I walked along the beach on the North Shore. I saw a bird gliding very low over the surf. Suddenly, the bird was transformed, into Karen, into Karen dancing, dancing in her changing room.

-finis-