The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #124809 Message #2763488
Posted By: Jack Blandiver
10-Nov-09 - 11:37 AM
Thread Name: Child #79 : Wife of Usher's Well
Subject: RE: Child #79 : Wife of Usher's Well
Not being given to writing poems or songs, this is something I came to me circa 1983 and represents something of a primal rap concerning the condition of storytelling in which the storyteller is forever astray in the joyful wilderness - a shaman journeying forth into a realm of wonders from which to weave their craft. This particular recounting occurs around Old Hollantide, Martinmass (when the nights are long and murk) a reflection, therefore, of the dark heart of the turning year, ceremonial to the ancient cause of such an invocation, recounted from memory to a freely-improvised violin accompaniment with diverse filters, delays and distortions by way of spectral leakage which ties in nicely with the Krautrock themes of this thread. I did this on Thursday night by way of a prelude to Usher's Well and it worked rather well...
Aye, listen close & it shall be told aye told in the telling between the setting of the sun & the rising of the moon take of no food nor drink & stir not from yr places & open not yr eyes & let yr ears hear whatever it is that they hear & yr mind think whatever it is that it thinks
aye listen, for is that not the hare that passes by this place? I have seen it ye hopper of ditches, a cropper of corn, a wee brown cow with a pair of leather horns milk that dark withy yr shuddering run / beast of no claiming aye shatter the year by your turning shadow / rested / unseen / unseeing
for in this place one eye shall become open & that eye that leap from out of the head & go as a fish in the silver stream / and my tongue shall fly out of my head & go as bird from tree to tree /
I am the fish / I am the bird I am both the fish & the silver stream I am both the bird & the trees & let them go from this place & let them return hither
& the fish shall once more become an eye & the stream will be tears of joy & sadness & the bird shall once more become my tongue & the trees become words chosen one to the other
is not my story the forest? is not the stream the waters of life that wash over this forest giving it the dance of living? Aye listen, for is that not the stag that passes by this place? I have seen it stir not / for in stirring we shatter the silence.