Cacophony Of The Soul: Select Writings Of Zarn Ishtare

[Zarn Ishtare]

"27"

I am blind.

I have left my uniform behind; now I am lost,

tempest tossed

amidst the similarly dissimilar

the unironically individualist collective

unpraying, word spraying corrective action required

An employee hiding among the fired

in the gluten free bread line

convinced in their unearned importance

of course I'm blind, even the time is not the time

it's all up for debate; facts left with the peas on the plate

undesirable ideological vegetables.

I haven't had the need to show such a sheer sheen

a shallow pond like this in years

I am unprompted, audience! Re-enacting movie scene

the singer who sang too long, now repeats his refrain in the theater

crowded in silence

Where did you all go? There were birds once, and puritans and nuts

and all sorts of colorful characters.

I was in love when this began, when my words ran into one another just like this

It's not that you're faithless

it's just that I've held on too long.

But I can't stop singing this song

these are the only notes I know

I'm still building bridges to nowhere where towns once lived

setting too many places at the dinner table, building up hope

till it washes away, my sandcastle setting

Friends,

All I can do is leave the light on.

I hope that the patterns trace back again, and strangers miraculously return to friends

Aren't we at odds and ends without each other?

How many of you could I possibly be talking to?

Is it permitted to say "All of them?"

I bang a gong

set the lights

check under the stairs

but you are not there

these travelers are like the air,

invisible.



Well, here I am.

Here I stand, waiting on the lee shore

an amiable ship breaker

waiting on the tide's roar

with friendly lantern lit

Here I sit

until you return, or until I learn how to leave

this beautiful disaster.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Turning eternal

swimming after her ribbon

following her wake

spinning around the traces

tied up by fate


I'm just chasing the strand

the banner path, the waving flag

from afar, backlit, the light patterning around her hand

sending it back to me



When I catch up with you

we've got some explaining to do

How has this taken so long

my love, so long


She's the tide, pulling me in

pushing me away again

pulling in, pulling me back again.

[Zarn Ishtare]

"A word Experiment"


Diamond rain,

ten thousand times ten thousand

window pane perspective, swirling tumbling echo song

raindrop pattern, saving grace, there were stars

there were stars where were your eyes

oh endlessly repeat

perpetuate

perpetuate

home

come back from the sky

this is my grasp

choir's singing songs to clasp

an eternal moment


stroke the strings, let the music tumble out,
every word and note,
every hum and chord,
let us sing

*here, where there are embers, and ashes*

[Zarn Ishtare]

So sad and lonely


why so sad and lonely

weren't you the only

place I was ever heard


why so silent and cheerless

why so quiet and droopy

haven't you held me up for ten plus years?


Don't let this be how you disappear

[Peanut]

You are not alone.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Brother,

can you spare me some sunbeam of your affection? Some reflection or refraction of your unrejection?

I miss you already; I bury our friendship a thousand times in my mind, and I wonder where the radiance of your love has gone. What light left to see by, with us so far gone?

Well. I will blow on the cold embers of my own soul, and try to spark a flame; catch a brand to my hand, and march through the darkness. I cannae speak your name. And yet...

I'll hold out hope just yet. Perhaps, in this slender hour

from some dell or bower

great circumstances will come

and you and I will be as one, under the light of a loving sun.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Oh gods of sport and chance
No friend to men are you
Who pray upon their feathered hopes
And make them distant as the stars

Who give them to dream of salient peaks
And strands them on the plain
While placing bets upon the meek
And break the souls of clay
you strike the bowling pins (and then!) collect them up again

Men of iron, hard and hot
Bend not your gentle knees
To the gods of sport and chance
And their unsubtle subtleties


Willow men, it is summer
And in the summer we shall tend
to water gardens born in spring
Until they freeze again

Come now ladies of the wood, wildhaunted, talecasting
And take your ease beneath the eaves of the willow men

Such shade as we shall throw is only for our friends
By the spring born water garden of the gentle willowmen


I closed my eyes in a benighted wood
And opening, saw there stood
An imperial figure, of antidevulan might
(In whom the worshippers of majesty delight)
Frightful in their grim repose.

To this dread I gave a rose.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Who

Who can I give these words of love to

Dazzling and bright on my tongue

When will my eyes alight on that face and form

My words will describe and my love will adorn

The tears made stars of my eyes, love

A cluster of stars in my eyes.

[Zarn Ishtare]

My tears made stars of my eyes love,

The day I woke up.

Clustered stars so bright love

Bright with love's delight, love

Stars all bright with love.

[Zarn Ishtare]

Stars all bright with loves delight
Eyes of love that shine
I am everythings',
And everything is mine

[Zarn Ishtare]

I am older now
But still taste morning on my lips
Benighted blue sky in my bedroom window
When was there ever such bliss as this? Each moment a kiss, a miracle

I caught fire in the sunlight, kneeling on the ridge
I burn bright with the heart of a bonfire dance
The romance of figures
Of symmetry

[Zarn Ishtare]

O Lord
Show me again that vision
That I saw on the steps of the stair in my dreams
Show me again the faces I saw in the summer sunlight
The kindly bleached blonde that looked on, selling newspapers at the top of the stadium
Or Her face, as I descended the stair
Too wise or afraid to climb down the side of the stadium
Foreboding the tunnel that players run out of to great fanfare
It was there, in her stare, she caught me.
O Lord
I'm grief stricken to admit
That I too old have forgotten that kiss
Memory of memory, all of this
But I remember the softness of her sweater, bearing a college letter
Her knee length skirt, cut just so, I annotated this
I would trade those notes for the memory of her eyes

Or

Just the kiss, Lord, nothing more

Or cheat of me of everything but the arms that held and the expression on her face
(My hourly request, my daily grace)

I can forget about the cartoon portion of the dream
(Child me was all thumbs and decided to abruptly dream in crayon)
Her mother was mad at me! Such an odd detail
Or the bowl that sat on the crayon drawn counter of the divider
That separated the kitchen from the dining room
As it had done in the house of my mother
On one side, her mother, disapproving
On another, us.

And then I woke up.

I make it 23 years today Lord
I consider that a long enough pause in this series of episodes
Yet I cannot summon it up myself Lord, you know
I'm not good at picking my own horses
Or choosing the right dreams
So as a birthday present, Father
As I squint at the dirt and doff my cap and bend my knee and treat you as some foreign conqueror who might dole out desires
(I apologize, Lord, I apologize)
I am reminded that you're my Father, and that I with open eyes can look clearly upon your face, in the book of life that you have written
In the faces of your creatures
In the splendor of creation
In the depths of your compassion
So let me try and ask again, as a son to a father and a friend to a friend

"O Lord,
Please send me that dream again."

[Zarn Ishtare]

Wolfblanket woman in her kitchen den
With a hungry stomach, dreaming of a hen


Mothered men are mother hens



I've extended friends going to their different ends
Made the curve and arc bend
To extend a little longer the beautiful lies
Avoid our goodbyes
Youths days at end

We were soldiers once, and friends
Don't tell me our dreams are at their ends
Harder than a wife, to divorce a friend

Oh say it is not the end
And mean it
Again

[Zarn Ishtare]

again.