A Stranger’s Night to a Face almost known.

By: W. Jude Aher

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And how often, and still again do somewhere yesterday’s lie upon the odd side of my bed. A stranger’s night to a face almost known. Where upon my floor lies the tarot deck spread and open into a saying of visions, of now yet to be - all calling to me. Yet who but myself, lies his head upon this pictured time. A Queen listens, gaped between these images of rain. And sky water draws its lines across my vague windowed reflection. Ever colored, almost colorless at times I stare in an attempt to see something beyond. A name or her name vaguely remembers itself into me. Somewhere words seemingly come drifting back to cross through me. And I see her standing where she never stood.

A storm rises and the ocean recedes. Sky blue breaks into gray movement. My fingertips are restless as they rest empty upon a windowsill. A sudden fill and I surge through myself holding onto the edge of my dreams in their ever repose. I am disposed to believe, to receive more then a void from myself. Someone calls into me from somewhere deep within, within of where owns more then I have ever dared to be. One feels where words can't quite perceive. In dreams I have felt a stranger’s wandering, and now awake, there is more then an edge to the empty side of my white sheeted bed. As if something was said, my mind lingers on the side of sanity or maybe where? A small doll furred in blue stands near to the window. Small sharp eyes seem to want to speak through a complete lack of movement. Rounded ears flicker to the sound of my own inner voice. For of real or of memory, where does this doll exist. The window is clear but for an old dusty bottle. It is so easy to believe in the tricks of an insane mind, and yet impossible to deliver what to my fingers. And sleep folds in upon me as I sit wrapped within my chair. Drifting somewhere past a find for dreaming.

I stand alone, still edged by winter, though winter has long since past. Through waves of heat, I feel the presence of ice forming a blue hold onto the outer walls of my apartment. This night is long into itself, and I sit wrapped ever in its darkness. Words are of the moment but vague images in which to direct my mind. I yearn for something more then just this aloneness which enfolds me. There are questions of reality which own onto me too uneasily. A candle lit, burns its light in uneven and yet complete movement. Breath is a slow movement, a surge leaning on my fingertips, focusing my whole self for a distance I can't quite name. For time seems to belong to the waiting presence of someone. Someone whose name has been heard, but lives ever long into the deepness of myself. In this deepness, lies my quest for a belief of more or simply a rage of insanity I crave to know.

To suspend into belief. Drifting deeper, edging towards sounds which seem to know me, I turn from listening into the ever of my own blackened eyes, into reach. I lean out to touch someone. And so from the mirror of my eyes, at first inward I drift. I wander through memories through pieces which often are more then. Visions in warmth through cold weight my movement, and as I seem to notice time in drift I pass onto my own weariness. Through a yearning for the simplicity of sleep, almost I retreat, but choose movement never the less. A faded image is a presence existing somewhere on the edges of my eye’s line. I lean for quiet and the movement that divines from such.

So close to stand to ones self, I stand unseen as a youth never too young carries with my other face. Cloaked in hair and cloth I edge from singleness, onto the wind and a dance of which is the soul of reach. More then a child, going mad in a field carved from a city. The dance is of freedom and of an almost need. The dance is the winter of aloneness. And here the winds of time seem to break free, and somewhere I turn into me.

I scream from a child woman who could never even dare her soul to see, to stand somewhere close and for a moment simply be. I run from a world built of nowhere into anywhere, into the quest of the wind. Each run is filled with jumps towards the sky. Tears remain dry while screams surge with each jump, demanding more then just these forever whys. Somewhere within was the quiet opening of an eternal try, for something past the closed fasting of flesh rationalizing sighs. And sometime within this ever run for the sky I stop, to the notion of a sound I have heard. There visibly almost unseen I feel her. I feel someone who won't be felt, dwelling in the swells of beyond the wind. For I choose to believe, I choose to speak. I turn to the wonder of more then me real. Hearing through a piece of me which merely feels, I speak for touch and nothing more. My needs have receded behind the belief in a way to feel, which as either my eyes or ears , so is what I feel. And the feeling faded while I stood there alone, while I stood there apart from my younger self. Time in feel and voids in black turn changes all upon a drifting sack. There is a lack as I drift alone. But sewn into myself I return, alone - or never quite.

On the edge of a river I sit, my legs wrapped upon themselves watching through the sound of a water flowing. The morning is still early in its rise, though the sun has already recalled itself full into the sky. A night unslept attempts to lean its weight, but the gate of my eyes somehow, easily refuse. I sit in a warmth of air which crossed into itself in its own ebbs and flows. Lines are sewn below my eyes, as ages move across my soul in tries to weight. At this I smile , though still remain.

Feeling someone near, I turned maybe to sharply. She stood close staring beyond me, beyond even the river. Her face was without a name, yet still some uneasiness moved across me. I stared at her for a few more seconds, and there seemingly unseen turned back into myself. Her feeling altered just barely as I tried to back into the just of me. Time scraped against itself and with nothing stated I heard my aloneness. no longer quite alone. There locked somewhere away from myself, I looked for a movement to turn away. And she spoke. Receding words I couldn't quite grasp pulled me up off the turns of that river’s silent screams and all that nothing means. She sat close and not quite with her eyes, waiting for. For seconds long I merely stared into her, still not quite mating to the presence of anyone being near. Her hair was tied to itself in a loose wrap upon the top of her head. Black its color wasn't quite. Her breasts were almost bare across my view as they breathed with her each breath, as they lied loose within a barely haltered top. Her legs wrapped long about themselves smooth within a tan and their nakedness. Her eyes were fleeting shadows which waited for but did not quite see me? Again she spoke and this time I caught her movement. Easy words of water and movement. But there I felt something lost within a mix. A moment I couldn't catch, and yet I spoke to her.

She lived in a quiet room in a house full of people. Voices in the names of games echoed out from used wooden doors as I passed them with her. She was without comment and moved singularly towards her own. We passed through an open room slightly filled with people. Here she merely nodded to them. Smoke filled the air around them. Nothing came across and nothing at all was lost. She passed through a door leaving me for a second, lost in an environment seemingly alien. Such a strange house of eternally hidden realities. And I followed into her room.

She was leaning over a small stereo as I entered closing a losing world behind me. Her hair had been pulled free to fall somewhat tangled down her smoothed tanned back. And then music flowed to quietly corner the room. Never soon she moved to a corner and rested her position upon a dark quilted bed, as I stood never still near to the door now but a lined wall. I stood waiting for the room to grab onto me, held by ancient forms pictured as dark crosses all upon her walls. Till the picture was she, a partially closed form, smiling somewhere thoughts across to my wondering fingers. I moved towards her and fragments of the past day. Almost for something to say.

Echoes of a long poem lie feeling weight down off my belt. Caught of not so silent tears, bending through years not yet lived or unspoken, they died. Her eyes were locked onto my fingers as I lost myself between the lines below her eyes reflecting lightened green, and my feels in the words rising out from nowhere streets. Grass rested maybe too easily against the nakedness of her legs. And questions of why would continually lie close to me though I knew more then to fail to their quest. The poem crawled and then broke open into the palm of my hand. As if sand against my face, I felt to know a trace of this woman lying somewhere near to me. And so we made this day together, a wandering of scenes almost falling together.

I sat near to her on the bed smiling as she lied back, moving without her as she reached for a breath. Slowly her music unfolded into me, as I believed against her for the moment. A window in another corner of her room was draped bright and grew silent with the quieting of the light outside. She stared as did I towards the window. And in a moment from her eyes I caught a glimpse of a nowhere fear. And though when she turned back to me it was gone. Suddenly remembering an earlier request she had made I asked to see her tarot cards. When she sat up I found her close to me, and for little reason more then she was there, I kissed into her lips. Forgetting her as I felt deep into a touch beyond her lips, I drifted her a second into long. Her breasts fell across my arm as I felt my body reaching closer. It was there between flesh and infinity that I finally moved across her name. Moving back caught her eyes ever closed. I waited my arms still wrapped upon hers till she came out towards me. Something felt cold, in a place I couldn't feel. Again I asked for her cards. Touch lied between us, as on the moment all those voiced doors behind me or us broke away into figments of darkness.

Within the slow rise into her room of darkness I read her cards from the floor into a vague quest for the wanderings of she. Her reading was to easy and all wrapped about a single card. The Queen of Pentacles lied in the past of a reading looking backwards. Disconcerted, I suddenly lost the cards and my voice from them to an engulfing of her room by a night filled air. I stretched upon the floor wondering about the movements of light till a candle, aflame within her hand broke my flight into..

She stood far above me as I lied there wandering my eyes slowly up to her. Long upon her legs till suddenly I found her eyes. And there in an unspoken moment we closed down upon ourselves. There as I felt warmth moving free from the nakedness of her skin, I leaned quietly to an unseeing sky, wondering if I could dare to find her with me. And I came to know her, flesh so easily torn somehow now rising from inside me. From somewhere else I met she. Till all was movement and a glimpse of the wind -- Wandering.

Morning broke and she was still beside me. I woke easily and maybe too. She slept quietly as I lay there knowing the length of her body and something more. And of something more which lay voiceless on the left edge of my shoulders sight. The light woke with me and as slowly, did she.

She rose easily not fearing her own nakedness or mine, sliding off our covers with her feet. Her waking silent, she suddenly spoke. It was her smile, a child no longer, a woman in the mists of somewhere which woke us both together into a day which still remained as ours.

I wrote of her as I lay alone in my too lighted rooms. And as the poem rose from across my fingers, I lost her into the wandering of my own nights, waiting unbent to the venting of a wind caught. And yet somewhere she remained wanting as nameless feel closed in me. So, that I knew in somewhere to see her still. A fill I dare not name as I turned to sit fully engulfed by own darkness. Neither by choice. A voice and sharp eyes were felt staring into me. And rain fell, a pained beat through open windows.

She stood in the slightly crowded room wanting to dance, but feeling strange before all these people she knew. Music too loud filled all the corners around her. She only noticed him when he placed his hand a little too hard around her. She felt the sweat rise from between her breasts, unseen. And as he demanded of her to dance from a name she couldn’t quite remember, time suddenly broke out against her. Her mind ran and too easily found glimpses of to much drink, as of smoke. She turned quickly and ran to a window. Her whole body rolled and she almost lost herself to the moment. Slowly the air and almost wind found its way into her lungs. And upon the taste, she drew in long deep breaths. Slightly revived she decided to return to her party. But facing her was a mass of barely human traces, or unheard within her maybe too human. Someone cried too loudly through the bracing of someone else’s arm. She almost felt strong again, just to find him once more beside her. His hands were standing tightly into his pockets, as his eyes were glazed and staring only onto her. She knew what he wanted but she had known earlier. Not feeling strong enough to break away from him, she simply stood there waiting for his lead. Till again she found herself dancing. Only this time the dance was slow. Second into second she came to feel his body pushing onto hers. She tried to speak of her period, which often worked, but it seemed that he had drunk too much and wouldn't easily leave. His face was no longer a face but just an object against which she had to play. Somewhere an ocean rolled into a breaking open of sand and her feet. Cold water asked her to retreat; yet, she never did.

She found his kisses too wet and heavy, cared too little or so she tried. So that suddenly and even as he cried she tried to break from his grasp. She had gone home with him and now wondered why. She knew that at this point that she couldn't or wouldn't break away. All the time listening from somewhere away as he tore into her nakedness, she wondered while hurting somewhere she couldn't quite trace, why. And as he came quickly into, she felt herself visibly tightening against herself. Wet across her too open legs she didn't want to touch.

Knowing him now very asleep she stood feeling very naked. Gathering on her clothes she felt old. The child within her soul couldn't believe, and so didn't dare to feel too much. So, she quickly left that shuttered apartment. The wind froze her sweat and opened her hair as she walked too fast from that house. She walked straight beyond a present carving wind till she arrived back into the loneliness of her own room. And in the darkness she threw off her clothes. Naked and wet, she feared for a moment to touch onto herself. Her fear was a she , she couldn't understand. Where had broken her command. Her hand now upon herself, forced itself into touch with what lied from him within her. She could no longer feel its strangeness. It was no different then she had occasionally felt before. Then why the remains of this quiet fear. In the darkness she washed herself.

Strange that it was morning that this poem wrote itself from across my almost still sleeping fingers. For rarely is it a time of writing for me. And I wrote it too quickly. When it finished itself, I could just barely make out the words. The morning wasn't yet full in its light, yet still I wrote , fingers too tight onto my pen.

I've thought -

or have wrought within

upon - to Life on

death edged -

In song - Screams as pain

for where, None

Dare - I know

Belonging But as a Name –

and all the faces - live locked

in the games of man –

that I am insane -

or mutated in a

Strangers Form –

though either, could easily remain

upon,

the other -

Empty palms where love -

more as touch upon , a

Woman, more then a Name

or, a moment -

in the movement of

Time -

a Reach for Eternal Visions-

which lean the wind to the ground –

Sound in music

torn - from ever

Deep

Inside –

Places Not meant to hide –

Places with Nowhere to abide within,

But for Wind mirrors -

Dreams Torn -

Screams Worn -

Late in the day I met her in that park, near to the river running. She was in a dress whose length was full, and whose scope was wide about her legs. Slightly off from white she was colored in a pattern of simple blue. I found her wrapped in silence. I merely nodded as I sat down somewhere next to her. And Isles of Nowhere ran in silence somehow through us. But there her silence ended as she rose up to, for a long moment to rest against my eyes. And sharp little eyes were felt from somewhere behind . I held her there till night broke and with it both of us began to speak. And something was barely said as we both walked away from the river

River ever waiting river. its cold long water ever demanding presence.

She held me tightly against she long after our sweat finished rolling together. Her pulse warm could almost find mine. And there into a silence of my aloneness, my poems still piece into themselves.

" Isles of Nowhere -

listen as years -

are the fleeting eyes -

a woman sighs for the love and hate

she's been taught

to relate or escape -

a Feel upon my shoulder ,

is she something real,

lost –

as I -

Within these;

Isles of Nowhere"

And she left late with the morning, carrying with her my silence’s name. And the edges of her crying, which wouldn't come, lived in wait closed upon the palm of my hand. Sand etched from my finger tips long after she had gone. For what moves on. Feeling what. A poem lies yet unspoken on a floor receding with the morning.

And there alone on my turned open bed I lie caught somewhere, remembering the lines of a face long past as yet to be met. Sweat is cold upon my naked chest. A stranger’s night to a face almost known . . . A stranger’s night to a place almost known.

 

 

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