Bewilderhof – 20

Bewilderhof – 20

Chapter 20
– conjuring sparks for the
other

he pulled a lung full of hay stung air in and held it until
he started to see tracer fire
at the perimeters of his eyes
(release/restart)
it was a game he played
as a boy
– a taste of walking
to the edge of one world without falling into another

though, he had come
close enough at times
that he caught a glimpse
of his other
self
his twin
same
yet not completely
a bit more
serrated in demeanor
and
with, from what
little he could tell,
a touch additional flash
in the pupils

DDr arrived at the package
and engaged the shadow
hawk in a silent showdown
she: regal patient
he: neither

after some minutes
(with agreement met)
he departed
and
when he departed
he
moved along the ground
like quicksilver
separating and coalescing
with each undulation
of landscape

different fireworks
graced the edges
of Bewilderhofs eyes now

as the ruby
put the package
in her handbag
took in the morning sun
and transformed
for a visit to the city

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 19

Bewilderhof – 19

Chapter 19
– azure’dly, needed
intervention

blue
morning came
sky

about 470
nanometers on
the scale

barrow bag of feed
slow pensive haul to the coop
rural route
truck unnoticed
at the end of the drive
no letters
just a small package
set near the boxpost

with an
Official BSA
knife
he
opened the sack to a
cacophony of cackle
for a broadcast of grain

sloth watched her as she watched Bewildehof from
the kitchen door,
wondering what exactly
grafted the two

the ruby seemed to intuit the question and said
“you can
consider me
a confederacy
of votives –
come together to
illuminate
the lower edges
of a persistent bereavement,
one that has
hovered above
this ones trail
from a time when he was in
shorter pants clearer of eye,
eyes that seemed
to thieve a particular
wavelength
from the sky
as they searched for
the source of shadow”

her attention moved
from the man tending hens to
the box by the post
“in my way I am
offering, perhaps,
the slightest edge
over a most artistic
practitioner
of stealth”

overhead
the hawk flew by
but his shadow stopped
to light
on the box
it’s form draping the
edges as it hopped
from end to end –
head cocked inquisitively

the house seemed to shudder
as she opened the door

“something to convey
a mind into menace
I would think,
it is best I should
see to retrieving it before
our chicken rustler
takes notice”

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 18

Bewilderhof – 18

Chapter 18
– 8mm mindjump

he was between
dimensions again
it happened
whenever
something innocuous
rewound the film,
triggering
a session of
rummaging,
and when it happened
he felt as though
he was
looking for a pearl
among the
detritus
of a strange
beautiful
moment

a re-screened evening
of a kid in a vest
made almost entirely
of pockets
sitting on a porch

a
few
steps from
the kitchen door
hens head to
roost cats
scratch
his

dog
faking
rabidity with help from
a toad -unaware-

night music
cued by
a screech from the eulenloc
a barn owl beginning
nocturnal hunt

here, 50 years removed,
pearls had become
a rarity in the
dust of present August
small stones though
– a plenty
and just as he
was settling
back in
what may or may not
have been
the proper decade

he grew
by the mass
of one –
kicked loose from the drive
inspected
and added
to his collection
as he reached
the barrow handles

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 17

Bewilderhof – 17

Chapter 17
– always in the kitchen
at parties

in the bubble
of the kitchen
at the table
halfway through a meal
with white noise as
ambient accompaniment
Double Dutchess
set her glass aside and, gesturing to their surroundings, says

“this…”
eye meets eye

“…dear timid sloth…”
hands go to lap

“…is, as is, with any force that strategizes campaigns
for emotion,
this
is
elaborate projection”

sloth, a
fork stalling full mouthed
bug-eyed vision of disarray asked/proclaimed:
“having been told that something is a
certain thing
for so long makes it true
on some tangible level –
if not, why have so many had beliefs branded into their flesh as infants? have had it injected into their spindervish selves by strychnine filled fangs –
have been half
drowned in waters of baptismal basins
blownupraisedupborneup
to it?
myself have suckled on it
filled my lungs with it
I have drank it
willingly”

“willingly, you say?”
the ruby smiled
“a motion raised
in argument using
dimorphic expression,
rarely worth the energy
but endlessly
repeated,
disintegrates without
much delay into
failure of language
becoming little
more than
a pun inappropriate –
the descendants of both
halves of any original debate
go forth and multiply
like oversexed lemmings,
I’m less than impressed
by all of it
of course
but, they do make
a most
determined set of
viral armies,
if nothing else”

sloth swallowed
napkined chin and
leaned back in his chair

light from under door jambs
strobed slowly – rising and falling in intensity
as if following the rate of breath of a grizzly in hibernation

but where these two sat
at a table in a nineteenth century kitchen
with wood fired stove
& chipped chinaware
there was no pulse
other than their own

one considerably
faster than the other

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 16

Bewilderhof – 16

Chapter 16
– box is

he despised the times
a Ludditial gray ancient
always loath to introduce himself to modernity

the magistrate let
the bottle breath,
his ringed fingers rotated
the ornate ossuary to
address its occupant

“here you lay
another
dove felled
by hawk and
I
will continue to
hawk on that one thing
that by
any name,
comes from
cirri –
winning ice
standing before the
comics idiom to
jaw wildly and butterfly
against buffering wind
craftier for benefit
of invention
having died on
occasion
from frustration
from boredom
disappearing
into my own struggle
to breach the citadel
proud to be
cold
to any outcome
honored to mock incidence ”

he turned the tomb slowly
To follow its inlaid narrative
a Babylonian battle played out in precious stone
and abalone

“with wine
for my head, it is clear
I’ve cued this office
from this same city
for a generation
you are well
to rest in this
enclave

as it seems
of all that can be said
of your
devotion to
the idea of entering –
it is of that alone which
has ended you”

a thumb followed the contours
of horseback warmongers
“even then
archers and swordsmen
knew
the branch is such a long time
missing –
pilfered from your beak
by those
of my particular
… ilk”

he closed the lid
and placed it into
a cardboard box

once sealed he set
it outside
his office door
and reached for a gold phone

‘mailroom’ he said aloud
then
‘extension 219’
silently

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 15

Bewilderhof – 15

Chapter 15
– confluence

from some
where within a deep somewhere
steady 48 degrees
a flow
a constant a mother
to miniature columns
of mist that,
in rising,
bathed moss and birch
lichen and mushroom

the water eased back
the throttle of his mind
the water set
instruments
straight

down the unlit path
thud of shutters
click of latch as

Double Duchess
snapped
her compact
and suggested
a spot
of dinner

she offered to lead
sloth to the house
each step toward the pale
silhouette twisted the screw
of fear deeper into his gut

Bewilderhof
stood by the spring
listening
to their voices being
absorbed into the soundtrack
of the woods
a farewell chorus of cricket
and frog nearly thunderous

the crescent above
seemed to change hue
as the unlikely couple
reached the stairs

subsonic ripples reached
out and nudged fugitive awake
from the loft window he watched
them pass from dark of yard into pulsating glow of the entrance

inhaling deep as
the house seemed to shift
ever so slightly
on whatever dimensional
axis it traveled on

the choir below
and beyond
reached a crescendo

in a tower
above a street
in the city

a dead bird lay in
a lacquered box
on the mahogany desk
of a man consulting ledgers

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 14

Bewilderhof – 14

Chapter 14
– reflex ions

in a new reflex
he picked up a stone and
turned it in his hand
as he walked

‘drop it
into pocket’
a new reflex

he left his boots where he slept by the tree and wandered grounded
(picking up needed charge)
beyond the shed

sloth watched as he passed

Pleiadean fireflies
descended

the night sky was some immense equation
that Bewilderhofs
mind rendered as abstract

walking with minimal reason
other than to awaken
down a path
that needed no illumination
other than memory
he came to a spring

from a cup that
was kept
on a nail in an oak
he drank like a man
who had survived
a desert

sloth
back at the window
drank like a man
entering one

in the corner
light coalesced
into a slight woman
checking her reflection
in a mirrored compact

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 13

Bewilderhof – 13

Chapter 13
– return

nightfall quarter
moon
perplexitude of
meandering patterns disquieting magnitude
unknowns he shuffled out
with towers forefront in
thoughts

paralytic properties
of the encounter
subsiding slowly

a strange fever sneaking away
laden with spoils of pillage

a thermos from coat
an oak tree to
rest against
Seven Sisters
arc above

sloth at shutters
awaiting return
wondered about
strength and clarity

his
evening preoccupied
with decay and mathematical
equations concerning
the half life of
his elemental core

90 proof veil
over his eyes and
famished from a failure
to maintain proper schedule
outside of laboratory settings

he held out hope for
an even handed
mighty shutdown to
predeterminate events,
a new anthem
to drown the old,
to be selfconsidered
nominally sane

as Bewilderhof
white flagged
exhaustion
sloth
looked toward Pleiades
trying to keep
his rate from deviating
a beat either side of 72

as there appeared to be
the Sisters annual offering
on a heading straight
for the shed

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 12

Bewilderhof – 12

Chapter 12
– pebbling

he fled dog dimension
submitting to
pull of the barn
entering through
an ancient red door
that opened
as if willed to do so

the familiar whine
was enough
fugitive stirred
from microsleep

he emerged
from behind the Massey,
transferred
his weight to one of
the tremendous
rusted wheels
stood and watched

he could make out the form
of Bewilderhof bent
over the bucket by the ladder
beseeching its
unrealistic depths
for answers
to questions
he had no capacity
to think of yet

he reached into his vest pocket
pulled out
a fistful of coins
choosing the silver dollar
for its rank among the lot,
he held it over the bucket
and let it drop

he would still be waiting
for the ring
of sterling on tin
if not for fugitive dragging
him back to what
passed as tangible reality
saying to a
startled slumped
Bewilderhof

“when building
towers to stars
even the smallest
of pebbles will suffice –
found or gifted,
they will find their place
nested among boulders
when
in any
season of loss,
the air too cold
to lift your hearthsmoke
above treetop,
shake a few from a pocket
gather a few
when bowed with grief
accept them
from tentative hands
as they multiply
place them
one above the other
destination upward”

clearly this was beyond
any comprehension he
could hope to have
he started rocking
back and forth
humming to himself

“we must” he said,
understanding well
the shock
in which
Bewilderhof was
currently enveloped,

“deal with our sensitivities
any way we can
they are the
center of a binary –
misshapen by the
constant battle of
independent minded
gravities”

Bewilderhof did not look up
transfixed by mystery

“consider the
disappearance
of your token
as one of those pebbles”

fugitives attention
went to
a low growl somewhere
beyond the walls

a baffled
shaking man
rocked by the ladder
his humming
growing louder

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead

Bewilderhof – 11

Chapter 11
– shadows

the pipers shadow
hugged contours
of the yard
in and
out the ditch
across cornfield
up the grade
toward the coop
climbing
barn wall then
disappearing

thick garlic of phosphate
hit soon after

Bewilderhof
pulled a sprig of mint
to deaden the taste
took up
an armload of ash,
and arguing with inertia,
dragged his shadow
toward the woodshed

as he walked the path
behind the house
he could sense it
watching him like a feral dog

he battled temptation
refusing to look up –
instead he followed
the shadow of
a hawk
working
territory from the ground
its owner skybound

circling
the farms cathedral
of duplicity,
the warning of which
looping
in his brain

(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead