THE BIRTH OF NOW By Samuel Beast
Chapter 1
Ah, precious young one,
full of desire,
if it weren't so late
I'd reach into this fire
and pull out a tale so tragicomic
that gods would laugh
and weep with tears atomic,
such a tale that
it would eliminate
the used-up story lines
of greed and lust and hate
of soap opera palaces
and material jails,
of wars and talk shows
and scandals and sales.
Instead, my darling,
if you were inclined,
we could cut away the cultural chains
that are entwined
with the feelings and thoughts
of our hearts and our minds.
Oh, never mind the hour!
Let's just plunge into the primal power.
Let me lead you into the invisible realms
where human awareness dwells,
nakedly crying and silent in the thrill
of being one with nature's will.
Chapter 2
The cloudy skies are like a temple
of marble and light,
like holographic convergences
of vision and sight.
Here water and wind shape the land.
Here it is feeling that moves your hand.
Here consonants defer to the vowel's command
and nouns are dancers in verbs sweet band.
Here we meet Ever who is always true,
whose words give shape
to the physics of sound,
whose sight is the constant of light,
whose touch defines
the invisible lines on the face
of gravity, momentum,
inertia and space.
Ever is the seer and Ever is the scene
and Ever has always traveled with you
no matter where you've been.
And Ever is maleness of the highest intent,
looking for the woman on whom
his passion shall be spent.
And the nymph of his destiny
with whom he will mate
is the muse of dance
and her name it is Changing.
Changing always knows
that she is naked beneath her clothes
and she sometimes flies
into the inner flows
that harmonize with the moon.
Changing is immersed in the song
of most intimate voices,
carrying the spent seed
when it falls to the earth
and nurturing the fertile egg
from start to birth.
And Changing is a dancer
like the wind in the trees
and Changing is a swimmer
like the tides in the seas.
When Ever meets Changing,
it's love at first sight.
Their first mutual glance
is a never-ender
giving birth to a being
of indeterminate gender,
a being that springs full grown
out of Changing's womb,
don't ask me how.
But I do know it's name is
Now,
Now Ever-Changing.
Rising unbidden
out of oceans of potentialities,
to reveal truths hidden
within the confusion
of self-made realities,
some know him as Karma.
Some see her as Love.
Some just close their eyes
and fall when they move.
Sometimes Now will shed its skin
and leave it in a place
that people call When.
Now's song surpasses
what humans can hear,
is sung by each instant
that ever whispers in eternity's ear.
And Now dresses in any costume it can find,
the mystic robes of the enchanter
or the naked flesh of your own behind.
Now could be the brutal sound
of metal dragging across the ground
or the subtle stillness in an angel's sigh,
or just the movement of your eye.
Now dominates you totally,
Now surrenders to your whim.
Now is the perfect lover,
the fleeting her, the constant hymn.
Now is a question, an answer or a song,
or the man or woman you love
writhing on your lips and your tongue.
Chapter 3
Introducing Now to the crowd,
Samuel Beast paces the stage
and finally dares to say out loud,
The microphone I use to amplify my voice
is actually none other than our moment of choice:
NOW!!!"
Now, the microphone, bursts out of his hand
and out of shape
and becomes first a fountain
then a tornado,
then a quicksilver lake
in a mountain of pearl
with riderless horses
splashing through the shadows
and intentional divers
slipping quickly into the deep.
A light rain falls
with each raindrop a viewpoint,
a lifetime,
a breath.
And Now licks your eyelid.
He's a lover already inside you,
gently embracing
your shoulders and your breasts.
And Now whispers "now"in your ear
as she wraps herself
moistly around you
and rests her cheek upon your chest.
And
Now says
"Hello audience
witness
experiencer.
I am so grateful for your attention
that I would give you everything in return.
But the multitude turns
away from me;
wherever they turn
I am there in disguise
and though
they can't see me with their thoughts,
they can't miss me with their eyes.
People who are caught
in their own thought,
who stare at the ceiling
of their own hidden feelings,
these people who fear
what next will appear,
who think, plan and scheme
to make life resemble their dreams,
who by confusing desire with need
become victims of their own greed,
these are some of the people
that turn away from me.
If you want to see me
you must open your eyes.
If you want to be with me
then never touch me
without feeling me.
Never tell me any lies."
Now's face dries out,
skin falls away revealing bone
which pulverizes at once to sand
and blows away . . .
except for a few grains
that collect like dew in the down
on the back of your hand
Someone in the audience cries out
"Where's Now gone?"
and those words are incorporated into the song
along with the sound of a fly
buzzing in sunlight over a kitchen table
or a warm whispering gasp of breath in the night
or an animal's cry abandoned in flight
that echoes through twilight shadows
and from countless rocky cliffs
of how's and why's and when's and if's.
And a sob of my own slips out of my grasp
as we emerge from the trance
of believing in a future and a past
and enter into
the swirling, sweltering madcap dances
of the present moment's unknown chances.
And Now says,
"I am a dangerous lover.
You can only live with me
when you're living by the skin of your teeth,
when you're living like a cat
holding nothing back,
when you want to rise out of the masses
to kick the asses of philosophers
who walk along the shores of an ocean of vision,
blindly seeking for proof of their own opinions.
Yes, when you eat your experience
as it arrives and raw
rather than cooking the life out of it
and passing it from hand to foot to claw,
then I can be yours and you can be mine,
slipping together in and out of time,
dishonoring dogma and laughing at its clowns,
sniffing the air like a pair of hounds,
hugging the earth like stones in a field
or stylishly passing through cities and towns.
I'll lick your wounds and make them healed.
You'll fly with my wings and sing the song
of innocent lips at last unsealed."