Ed Said.

Ed said: the note of G, the color red, one earth day – twenty three hours and fifty seven minutes – are all born of the same harmony. C sharp and blue-green, one earth year – the same.

The harmony of sound and light and time and being all wavering at equal frequency.

The chakra a grounding force of connection and earth energy; the slowest vibration an earth toned root; the fastest, a tidal pull in and out.  

Ed said: the alpha wave, the awareness of you and me and the world around us – exists as an energy field.

So, let’s get lost, let’s fall off the hook, let’s touch the vibration, let’s get held in the sound: sound, which came before music, before language.

The simplicity of the echo of time: the mallet to gong a tangible vibration telling stories of settlement and struggle and triumph and change.

Deliberate and slow, Ed said: do you hear it, the hook of tempo? Can you feel it, the vibration of experience? Can you see it, the reverberation lapping like waves?

It’s the sound of healing.

xoxo,
M.L. H’art

Ba-Thump.

Lying in the valley of this saggy old mattress, my ear stuck to smooth quilted slip cover, I hear your heart beat: a ba-thump rhythm rising up through coils and foam. Listening to your heart mark the two-four meter twitch of eyes desperate to close, I trip the waking wire of semi-conscience and drop somewhere between awake and asleep, somewhere between touching you and only remembering the way you feel.

Your prosodic night song makes me miss you most when the moon is cloud covered and I can’t sleep. There was a time when I could sleep beside you, when life was easy, when life was good. But the older I get, the harder it is to measure the weight of your heart against the feather Ma’at; the tools I use to dig the truth out of the gut of the late night grow dull and the dirt caked skin holding sinewy hands together begins to crack and bleed all over my bedclothes.

Morning comes faster and faster – a ultra-violet blur of tomorrow’s stolen from today – and though I try to keep time with your quickly fading pulse, the sunlight washes the sound away, syncopated counts an unraveling tempo turned off till it’s just me and the silence, sitting back to back, awkward and shy.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

The Jackhammer Waltz.

Machine gun rattle, the jackhammer bullies each one of my slippery dream thoughts hard into the spring-wet pavement. Sunlight vibrating the length of each rat-tat skips through the cloudy window. It is morning and I am red-wine dry. Smacking stained lips, the sheets shush and rustle as I turn over and over in the covers – a twisted game of hide and seek.

I share my first cup with the construction workers four stories down – leaning against the coerced chain link fence, it bowing under their weight, they raise their indestructible faux-titanium travel mugs their wives and girlfriends wiped out and refilled just that morning as a half hearted cheers when I step out onto the balcony.

“Morning boys,” I mutter, sticky morning breath swirling steam above the lip of my pink mug.

Skyscraper blue glass bounces stretched rainbows of Saturday sun across tired city streetways. A lineup trickles out the door of Money Mart, weekend tired warriors rubbing grubby mitts across crinkled foreheads, eyes squinting back early light, creased post-dated pay checks shoved into flannel shirt pockets.

Trundling traffic takes corners with less urgency. The lights shift slower. No one honks.

Like the sound of wind chimes tickling the backdoor of grandma’s house, the tink of green glass shimmies up the drainpipe. The calculated sorting of glass versus can has begun; the tchick-tchick of shopping cart wheels on winter-worn back alley pavement a race of rattled metal over uneven cracks.

Batonning the fan-belt crescendo screech, I conduct the moving echo of sirens cascading up and down, up and down. The concrete symphony swells and wanes on the dew-wet lips of wind, a compliment to the bellowing chorus of construction holler.

Keeping rhythm with the smacking steps of flip-flop clad feet, the song of spring has arrived downtown.

xoxo,

M.L. H’art

Muse(ic)

Aoide pokes Calliope, a song leaping from lips to page, invoking an electrometric backslide of bursting notes, translating trance beats to linguistic feats – inspiration begetting music, music begetting story, story begetting inspiration. And so continues the revolution of creative process.

Thank you, muse, for herein lays inspiration:

listen

I promise: the electric arc will be famous some day.

xoxo

M.L. H’art

postscript: where do you find your inspiration?