Elsewhere

i have known love
and tasted both delight and sorrow
there on the dark altar of the night


and in the end it did not matter to me
no more than the promise of fortune or revenge
i remained a pauper,


poorer from this multitude of desires
and i am no more wise nor more skilled
by that to which i never gave more than half my heart
because my attention was Elsewhere
always Elsewhere.....


In some Jamaica of the mind,
peering like a dream miniature over a gulls wing
drinking in the sun drenched waters
of another endless ocean


the summer cliffs of Big Sur
wandering in deserts
hitching the nowhere highway
like Quixote in Spain
dreaming of Elsewhere


tracking the Elsewhere
a place i can barely visualize
barely trace the outline
like some blurred face on an old coin


yet it never leaves me for a moment
it penetrates my every thought
until nothing is more important
than to be Elsewhere
to be
where it is


like Marcellus
who won the robe
and was burned to the soul when he put it on
they say the love of God is like a consuming fire
and he could not rest
until it had consumed him


there has been laughter and tears
and visions
and descents into the dark splendor
more than a few times
to educate the serpent in the spine
who is neither good nor bad
but both
alternatively


nothing


i have observed


is consistently anything


nothing but the truth
which cannot be observed



everything in time
turns to its opposite


day to night
hot to cold
the hope of youth into the resignation of age
and the hell of a compromised life



the loyalty of anything
leads ultimately to betrayal
where does one stand...?
on what?
And for what?
we let such little things destroy us
we do not see the Elsewhere
i have never held anything completely


there is a place...
i know it without question
it is the highest note above the keening of the wind
it is beauty and despair
it is the suffering spirit in the house of the rich
it is Lazarus at the palace gates


it is
and i am
and one of us is displaced


nothing is harder than to get there


i write these words because i am in love with it
somehow i am marked by it
too much has happened in this life
too much that can not be explained


of course
it could be only the arrogant mind
that imagines for itself
a high destiny


but my dreams are not of golden plunder
ten thousand horsemen
or a high throned kingdom
though real fame does intrigue me more than the rest
to be anonymous is best
i have seen his name attached to many things


i dream of freedom and
bright sunlit rooms
beautiful faces that speak to me in music
who are they?
i have been here before
but not in this world
this world is only a shadow of it
quite simply shit
brushed with rainbows
that glow in the ghost light of a neon nightmare


can love be accomplished here?
the wind whistles through dead trees
and that is all the answer that this world gives me
and I,
like every other fool
have asked it more than once
out of boredom
to be enchanted and bewildered


lost at birth
abandoned in the great hall of mirrors
slowly borne down the continuum


in these mirrors i have seen my thoughts
the good and the bad
they are the moment
and what the moment says
is like the wind that whistles through dead trees


too many mirrors breed a carnival of despair


after a time
love becomes the supreme effort
it works in every small way
diligent to seal the cracks
through which devotion leaks
into complacency and death


such a love does not sleep
its power is from that Elsewhere place


there is a highway
and it is not separate from life
they are the same
each filled with exits and entrances
lined with attraction
and circumstance
that lead into every possibility of the imagination
none of them lead Elsewhere...


beyond-
the wind that whistles through dead trees
and it is Elsewhere
at last
that brings us everyone to our knees


every stop on the highway
is another death
disguised as justified delay



it is so lonely on the highway
for on every side the only sound one hears
is the wind
as it whistles through dead trees


in the distance are the lights of town
there are warm seductive rooms
crowded with all the postures of approaching death
but in time
taking on the very appearance of life


time blurs the critical eye
and we see what pleases our reasons to stay
and we must stay
out of the fear of the meaning that comes
to one who listens overlong
and understands...


...that voice
like some great and solitary raven
perched atop a gutted skull
that is the face of the wind
as it whistles through dead trees


there is no forgetting after that
no drink nor drug can erase it
i have tried
believe me i have tried


in the end
there is some truth
to the mutterings
of those robed and cowled merchants of word magic


after a fashion there is some truth
to these phrases
"be here now"
"we are all one"
"let it flow"
"do what thou wilt"
along with all the others
do not believe them
they work for the bank


the truth is Elsewhere
has always been
Elsewhere
and their words are the origin of the wind
that whistles through dead trees


so many imposters
they have taken us all
perhaps they believed what they said
perhaps they did not
they spoke of somewhere
but not of Elsewhere


now...


i do not know
what I am about...


Elsewhere waits Elsewhere
and i wait here for Elsewhere
and i believe that Elsewhere will come to me


why else has it filled my every dream?
why else has it caused me-
consistently to fail,
from having given so little of myself
to every effort in this world?
from having found no ambition to be strong enough to fill me
from having loved nothing enough to forget how much
i wanted to be Elsewhere


now...
there remain those small duties of life to attend to
those efforts i have overlooked
in my desire to be Elsewhere


not seeing that Elsewhere
forever retreats before desire


that Elsewhere
is just that place where desire ends
so


there are matters to attend to
and time to attend to them
and that is good
and very much like being Elsewhere
and in all of this


the sweetest of musics


the warning and the witness


and the heart of patience itself


is the whistling of the wind
through dead trees


in memory of Elsewhere

Patrick Willis narrates:

Elsewhere