The Invisible World

Fairy houses are sometimes underneath human hearths, and the hearthstone is often their door. Walter Gill has a story quoted from The Celtic Quest about a house at Airlie in Angus which was supposed to be haunted by the fairies because cakes baking at the fire sometimes disappeared. At length the house was pulled down, and it was found that the hearthstone was actually the roof of an underground house. A number of mouldering cakes were found which had slipped through the crack.

- Catherine Briggs, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature


***


Toward the end of the 12th century Voyage of St. Brendan, Brendan and his monks find their anchor stuck in the sea. The sailors clamor loudly for help, and a dwarf, hearing their cries, runs to a hermit dressed in animal hair. The monks watch the two approach in a small boat and hear the old man sing in a loud voice beautiful pagan songs. Brendan isn’t sure this man comes from the devil, so he has him stand close to the relics on board. But the old man, whose name is Johannes, actually is one of God’s chosen people and he celebrates mass on board, offering the sacred host to all. The dwarf tells the men that the rope is tethered to the invisible world and that the singing they heard actually came from down there. At that moment Brendan understands that the book he burned contained the truth and that he must now head home to write down all those wonders in a book of his own writing.



THE INVISIBLE WORLD

July 21

Faith is the certainty
that the invisible world
protects and borders
and greets us as love
was always meant to,
no matter what breaks
our hearts along the way.
Our works then proceed
to build a life upon
soft water, the way
the Lady of the Lake
circleted her court
beneath the waves.
I came by that faith
ever slowly down my
years and with great
and foolish ardor,
wounded in every way
which love is neither
actual or virtual
but is instead supernal,
a whale beneath the
wave which rudders
every homeward song
with salvos of loud
basso. The other day
I downloaded tracks
from Lyle Mays’ second
solo album (1985),
stuff I hadn’t heard
in years. That music
first entered my ears
late in my first
drinking career,
washes of such aching
purity as to render
my ruined heart
complete: A wash
for those broke
hungover afternoons
of late-autumn light
that weirdly and
for no good reason
confirmed that my
heart still beat resoundingly
deep in the invisible world
that ghosted the world
I had shattered.
Bittersweet songs, viscous synth
in counterpoint with plinked
sweet arpeggios, liquoring
my sense without the hootch,
love songs full like the moon
in satch and lucence
if only in reflection,
in the brutal undertow
which had washed all loves away.
An art’s Platonic gold
flickered in the ghastly
cave I had mined full down
in futile search for gold,
as if to whisper from
a keyboard, you and I
both are children of the wave.
How can I say it: I was lost
to broken nights yet found
myself complete in the lush
blue agon of those songs,
home at last in the
way that said I had always
been there, just not to
the eyes and surfaces of things
(empty doors, sour mashed
autumn light, the horrid
waste of exhaustion,
abysms doubled in a
nekyia’s bottle club).
Heartened by that sound
I rowed slowly on;
in a few years I left
the bottle of those nights
and shored at the
margins of a love which
slowly grew me down to here.
This still dark hour of
4:30 a.m. is complete
in the aching swoon of
songs I haven’t heard in
years, fulfilled in what
life absents, as if presence
full hallows what the heart
must harrow through alone.
One cat is turned deep
asleep on the couch
across from me, another
mewls in the window
just outside, in hunger
for food or love or both,
for what security I can offer
from that outside,
indifferent, dying world.
Nothing in the garden
but the washed and
welcoming bride
I never married,
beckoning to me though
not to enter but rather
simply to welcome as
best I can here and everywhere
the surfside rumbles of
the rollers ebb their
quintessentially smashed foam.
That’s what I task these
lines to: To kiss the faith
in an invisible world
of what can’t be known
or found or touched at last
and in so losing
raise enduring chapel walls
over an ever fading
music hall that
tides the deepest
chambers of my heart
where the whale is singing,
singing loud.





PIANO TRANSCRIPTIONS

From “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

Summer 1986:
On the eve of
my 29th
birthday I
headed out
expectant and
cynical of what
lay wrapped for
me in the moon-
folds of dewy
humid summer
night: Tipping a
few with Norman
at 2FU though
he’s distant &
chattering of
futures exclusive
of me: Then walked
over to
Decades to
hear The Walk
and Bad Roads
who had this
guitar player
Dena I’d met
several times &
wanted but would
not chase—brotherly
for some reason
with her —they
sound good, punchy
& sassy, Dena
handling her leads
well & carving
an edge onstage
in a polka
dot dress &
black cowboy boots:
On to Bailey’s
for shots and
beers & then
back into the
blitzkrieg
partyrama of
the Crocodile
Club but it’s
cold blooded,
insensate, my
presence nothing
new or noticeable:
The hours molt to
closing & so I
head up to the
bottle club, still
expectant of The
Event Which Saves:
Wade into that
bog of sweaty
drunkenness
& bad disco,
the place mostly
empty though I
strike up a
conversation with
this girl Laney,
20, fattish, rich,
expensive threads
too, 400 dollar
purse, Newport
Beach inflections,
talking drunkenly
Daddy’s Lear jet
& all this local
backwardness:
Yah yah are ya
coming home with
me or not? She
not so much
coaxed as simply
steered out the
door down washed
out blackout
lanes to my
bed, 4 am., my
tiny tinny
blaster playing a
worn-out copy
of Mr. Mister’s
first album, the
woman passing
out as soon as
she hit my
dirty sheets: But
still I managed
to get those
expensive white
boots & pants off
& have my way
anyway at least
this way which
is the worst way,
coming at a locus
I’d rather grieve:
Happy Birthday
asshole I sighed
passing out: I have
the next day off,
waking round noon
to drive stuprous
Lenny back to her
car (her Newport
Beach accent gone
& she staring out
at the fierce
August heat with
something between
resignation &
terror): Go to
the Y, work off
the alcohol on
the Stairmaster,
lift weights, lay
out in the sun
awhile by the
pooi just grateful
for the sun which
is no guitar
& happily
opposite my
nocturnal jugular:
Then it’s off
to my mother’s
for a birthday
dinner with my
mother & my
aunt & uncle,
easy time, Greek
salad, pita bread,
laughing &
talking &
remembering,
classical music
on the tape deck,
easy friendly
love, homemade
ice cream, my
mother doing all
she can to show
me how much
she loves me:
That’s what God
told her to do
when I first flew
south: She didn’t
have the slightest
idea what to do
with a lanky wild
rock n roller:
Just love him said
the inner voice
& that’s what’s
she’s done so
faithfully ever
since: That year
she gave me
Lyle Mays’ 2d
solo album,
absolutely
wonderful
piano-based
mediations,
wholly without the
freight of guitars:
That music
lorded over
the impending
destruction of
my guitar,
leading me through
a wasteland with
such gentleness
& force of heart
I still believe
the notes though
they never meant
a woman on a
beach welcoming
me: sure felt like
a beachside
accompaniment:
though: Lyle with
Pat Matheny’s
group which first
grabbed me with
“As Witchita Falls
So Falls Witchita,”
which I heard
in the autumn
of 1981 after Kay tore
loose from me:
Such inexpressibly
bittersweet grief
in that tune
“September
15” (prophetic
too): & then
the 1982
album “Offramp”
which Holly gave
me amid our
long rainy miles
of summer night:
“Are You Going
With Me” that
heaving bossa
nova pulse of love
you swear you’d
someday rediscover:
And years later
in the summer
of 1995 after
my divorce and
a long season
of solitary nights
I bought
“Fictionary,”
a collaboration
between Mays and
Johnson and
De Johnette:
Lush and soft
and sweet and
moody, lyric in
the tradition of
Bill Evans but
with a gorgeous
late century
attention to the
heart’s polyphonic
wash: A music
beyond or
inside my
guitars, notes
not so much plucked
as silvered like
sighs from a
kissed nipple: As
this poem reaches
for all I could
not reach axing
down my life
with a guitar:
I played that
first Lyle Mays
solo album in
the summer
when the guitar
finally died
or dived down
to Tyr Na Og
& anchored
whatever followed:
Bandless my
bandwidth shrinks
to a zero where
each hour strums
the same empty
chord resonant of
nothing: The next
day out to a pool
party put on by
fellow aethletes
from the Y:
The sky blatantly
clear & hot, shrill
blue high nineties
& the day’s round
of fitness events
and physical
exuberance
getting lost in heat
& beer & though
I wish I could
just be an easy
body friendly
with the world:
Or perhaps my
desire for it
was so intense
that it poisoned
every attempt
to blossom in
it: So I just
participate in
the events this
half jock half
nocturnal worm
& ieave with
burning shoulders,
a buzz & raving
impatience for
a woman, any
woman: Drive home
in a funk as
the skies freight
with storm &
sleep awhile
knitted by thunder
& wake on fire,
strap on my
guitar, crank the
mother up, climb
aboard that sweet
chariot of song
that sounds like
iust or even love
but isn’t, as words
here approximate
or conjure a
life which is
really so
bloodless, not living
at all: Drink some
beers, read some
of Pynchon’s
Gravity’s Rainbow
(my Book of the
Dead, my underworld
companion), stare
out the window
at the ruined,
remnant marl of d
ay, a wash of
black trees, gray clouds,
some empurpling
of the Between
composed of
dying day and
rising night: A death-
time which wakes:
Revenant, my black
heart tolling
vampire matins,
I shower &
throw on my
musty stale rock
n roll threads,
haul up another
twenty from the
dresser, walk on
out into the
fretful night littered
with puddles &
bugs & sheet
lightning: Walk to
Bailey’s for a
beer & a shot
& talk with
a lawyer just
relocated from
Miami who tells
me how bad this
town is until he
spots a couple
of blondes at a
nearby table &
wanders over
there telling the
girls the same
story he launched
with me: I leave
& walk in light
rain (Walkin’, Walkin’,
In the Rain —
from Flash in
the Pan, my old
solitary Spokane
nocturne): Up to
Decades where The
Walk is setting up
for their set &
talk with this
songwriter Jon
David a while
about Phil Ochs
& Dwight Yoakum
& Jason Ringenbug
(of Jason & the
Scorchers) & the
possibilities of
Bruce Cockburn:
Possible indeed but
not for one who
has ridden on
the spine more
savage fish:
Bored I walk
over to 2 Flights
Up where Crooner
plays light jazz,
an after dinner
cordial before the
main carouse:
Time to party:
Walk back to
Bailey’s & the
Croc Club to
do shots & shots
& shots dance
with whatever
& when the place
closes go home
to grab another
20 from the dresser,
get in my car &
drive up to the
bottle club: Fearful
of cop cars that
prowl like
barracuda in
the dark shallows:
Unfurling into
the bottle club
like a banner of
hyena howl:
Raging now for any
woman, any outlet
for my raging
empty useless
predatory heat:
Bump into Steph
& we go eat
breakfast & she
invites me home
which is this awful
wreck of an old
woman s house
who died a
few weeks before
— some relative of
Stephs— Ashtrays
still fraught with
the dead woman’s
cigarette butts &
a stench of sweat
or piss & old
papers & all of
that hanging like
smoke in the
yellowish dank
washes of the
house: We drank
a last beer at
6 a.m. & headed
to a bedroom
with a single bed
& a fan & a
small black & white
tv showing the
agricultural
report & fell
there on her
body pulling back
covers & panties
to nestle nurse
lavish her
pussy with my
tongue fingers
cock fingers tongue
cock cock tongue
tongue tongue till
she’s gripping my
head with her
thighs coming in
peals clenched between
fire and foam:
But I can’t
muster my
own release, trying
to come in her
pussy, mouth,
asscheeks, over
her belly or
between her tits,
but there’s nothing
& I’m up looking
for water: When I
get back in bed,
she’s asleep &
I lay next to
her descending
below zero: We wake
in an hour or
two. the Sunday
morning already
hot in that house
of death: Get up
to start drinking
beer smoke a joint
& listen to Soft
Cell on the
stereo & Steph
says wanna go
to the beach
today? & I say
Oh what the Hell:
No practice
today, no edge,
no reason to
hold back anything:
Pick up another
6 pack & a
girlfriend who sits
in front with
Steph passing a
bong & gabbing
about asshole men
while I pound beers
in back: The sun
beats the morning
flat & Van Halen
roars on the radio
& we weave through
beachbound traffic
like a frantic
manta in brilliant
blue meaningless
waters: There is a
beach for every fool
errand our silly
heart sends us on:
A beach for
every dream,
every love,
every guitar, and
when all that
fails, a beach
for the roar of
of Aw Fuck It
which means either
Turn The Page or
Kick The Bucket:
Drunk when I
woke, plastered
when we get to
Daytona Beach,
I wander off from
the girls (who were
getting disgusted
with my blackout
antics) down to
the beach among
passing Firebirds
& Corvette
convertibles
blasting Ratt &
Lynyrd Skynyrd
& girls wear
fluorescent
bikinis bright
as flame &
flicker in and
out of blazing
chrome: And for all
that heat and
brilliant light I was
still in the
bottle club, flashing
& gnashing my
canines, my hunger
engorged all the
way from dusk
the night before
now blueballed
with the sky &
sea & eyes of
passing girls &
there’s nothing,
absolutely nothing
I can do about it:
Walk out into
the surf &
settle there up
to my neck praying
take me away
motherlode I’m
ready to just be:





LYLE MAYS (2)

2004

I heard your music first in the
Ruin of my days -- that sad time when
I’d drunk to dregs what wasn’t there,
No draught deep enough, no bed my
Own. Lost in an ever-souring
Night, your second solo album
Came into my hearing like a green
Sprig on a changing wave -- hope at
Last of land. No, that’s not quite it:
More like uncorking a note from
An old, perhaps infinite bliss
Which resembles the wild blue sea
But isn’t. Men die every day
For lack of your sweet so dire salt.
Your soft keys sprang my ear’s deep vault.


LYLE MAYS

2002

Listening to Lyle Mays
as I have these past
20 years has frequently
been like swimming in
sweet waters: immersion
in a uteral plenitude
with all the time in
the world: Yet his
gorgeous keyboard
arias turn bittersweet
in the sad knowledge
of how little
they truly move or
matter or rescind
the human day:
His ripened ecstasies
are almost deadly so:
Music for the lover you
dreamed of all these years,
with soft sea eyes
and impeccably spread hair:
Drops of lost mother’s
milk dribbling
from the notes:
Pure, inconsolable
nourishment. Of late
I’ve popped the “Solo”
(1998) CD into the
player of my rental
Grand Am and driven
to work and back
inside a lush, becalmed
sheath. Sometimes
I feel stilled as a baby
returned to her
eternal beach: Other times
I want the other tit,
with its dark juice
anticipating perfectly
met desires. I don’t know
whether his music
blesses or braces
the life I choose:
Completes or collapses:
Breaks me open
like a rash of sweet
jasmine or caulks
me shut in a calyx
of ice: Both I
suppose: It’s my best
and worst music,
the way I listen
to Lyle Mays,
so sadly earnest,
so resigned to
an ineffably
impotent sigh:
My wife can’t stand
to listen to it,
says it depresses
her to no end:
Can there be a goodness
in the music of falling
angels? In the heart’s
impeccable and
unbreachable desires?
Is there any truth
to narcotized traffic,
to the Florida day
infused with an
aural hoar? Does such
Longing ever finish
braiding her Lament?
I don’t know, but
this music is surely
one of my names,
the sum perhaps
of what is in every day
that can’t be touched
though we wish to,
oh, infinitely so.
Pandora’s box
locked in the roots
of my ear-heart
with its one
consoling content
singing back to
Lyle’s sweet piano
washes: my glittering,
terrible tide
with it’s too wide,
too dark mirror.





BILL EVANS
DIED DRUNK

2000

Bill Evans died drunk
or fucked up on drugs,
I’m not sure which,
but suffice to say here
that he was a
great jazz pianist
who ended things
out on that glittery
cold shore between
our ecstasy and God’s.

What a player.
He could lift those notes
so serenely and true
they dripped with a lyric
glitter that surpassed
what any heart could bear.

Yeah, Bill Evans died
fucked up. But consider
the courage it took
to forge a career
on ecstasy. Amid that
all that is not joy.
To mount that cross
of sweetness night after night
only to come back down
into days and days of this.

That was his genius, you know:
to haul up those chords brimming
with saturate joy and know
there’s more, oh, infinitely more.

The first kiss over and over
and over again, inexhaustible.

How else could you die but drunk?






CONCERT IN PARIS

2003

Bill Evans sounded
the ocean in
a piano’s keys. Played
them like a man
holding on to his
totem fish for dear life.
Each song was
chaliced from a tide
so full of sweetness
there that just
one thimble could
smash down a
cathedral of pale
singers in its wake.
Those keyboard washes
killed Evans for sure --
a career OD on
infinitely pure and
purer chords composed
of bitter minors
and collapsing major
sevenths, pouring
in the ear the sounds
of angels in bed
praising God with
sexual wings.
Addiction was
his only defense --
who does not numb
what only God
can fully hear? The
powdered horse
post-gig, plugging
the ears with that
whiteness else
sirens swallow the sea ...
Was he any kind of
man away from those
wild keys? Could he
ever walk on dry land
with feet grown
so skilled at the waves?
Perhaps art is just
a migraine of soul,
a smoky torch wrapped
in a falling angel's wings,
surrender to the wave's
collapsing half, limned
in that cloak of mist
and foam which thunders
down a life's short shore,
forever in tumult, always
demanding more of
exactly what can never
be sustained. Every time
he found those gorgeous
places (composed of
two or three of the
same piano keys a
million players also
played but never
could sound), you
sense how beauty
shoots inward as it
reaches achingly out,
each fingered ecstasy
an arrow through
its own ripened heart.
At the Paris Concert
in '79 Evans played
with his last trie,
aged 50 and looking
much worse: he bent
over those keys the
way the moon works
the tide -- a power
above soothing
forces below. He
would be dead soon
enough from all the years
harrowed by that song,
damping down the voice
of God in every wave,
his hands obeying what
hauled him too far out,
into places more
savagely sweet than
the very sea -- “Minha”
thonged with so many
curved vowels of ocean
bliss, capping a
career careering just
offshore, just out of
reach, just where all
the angels lean against
the bar long after closing
time and try, oh try,
to shut the door
with just one more,
my friend, just one more
& all the while
cawing in the booming
hiss, flinging wide the
wild startle of the next
kiss from that piano
on a stage beside the sea,
an ecstasy whose
bottom is bottomless.

ELEGY
(For Bill Evans, 1929-1980)

Bill Zavatsky

Music your hands are no longer here to make
Still breaks against my ear, still shakes my heart.
Then I feel that I am still before you.
You bend above your shadow on the keys
That tremble at your touch or crystallize,
Water forced to concentrate. In meditation
You close your eyes to see yourself more clearly.

Now you know the source of sound,
The element bone and muscle penetrate
Hoping to bring back beauty.
Hoping to catch what lies beyond our reach,
You hunted with your fingertips.

My life you found, and many other lives
Which traveled through your hands upon their journey.
Note by note we followed in your tracks, like
Hearing the rain, eyes closed to feel more deeply.
We stood before the mountains of your touch.
The sunlight and the shade you carried us
We drank, tasting our bitter lives more sweetly
From the spring of song that never stops its kiss.

(from the liner notes for Evans’ album
You Must Believe In Spring)