Falken

[By Guest Blogger, Stephen Falken]

Writing is a gift in the best of times, and harder in the worst of
times. When things are bad, attention spans are shorter; everyone
wants a quick way out of Now. Music is a gift in the best of times,
and better in the worst of times. When things are bad, music is more
valuable; everyone wants a quick way out of Now. So let’s go.

We share a daydream this night: we close our eyes and let ourself go
where we are taken. No force. Studied stillness. Open. Wait. Drifting
in air, like a decaying musical note desperate for a hear to be home
in…into and across a busy baroque salon, white wigs and quill pens
twitching, where they teach stubborn Persians latin rhythms and the
power of resolution, taking a seat at the far end near the
decanters…hammering down a corridor lined with our tribe (everyone
showed up), toward a room filled with rose light, pausing to view the
stained, static pages of an open book on a stand to our left…we’re
led deeper into the castle, perched above edges of continents – all of
them…there are noble filigrees on the carven appointments of the
sunbright space we now inhabit; we pay our steady, heady way
through…backstage green room actor in mirror, lost in the part they
play, we play, we pay…a hopeful windowed horizon to our right as we
partake our leave…we enter-rupt the ritual, soul sacrifice of all
things dearly barely held…a vocal calliope sounds as we hang like an
armada above the closing carnival, players all watching us watching
their upturned shared faces…on departure, we see a voice needing
being heard through a silvery convex lens…to a tent at the edge of
the firelight: a red-scarved mistress reads our cards – if our faith
holds, there may be a way to survive, to hold it together for a bit
longer…seeing yourself in others, they in we, us in them, trapped as
we were, hoping for the hopeless…our last stop: death begets life –
nothing else will suffice, and the castle tilts above the prospect,
and falls from its perch above continents – all of them – and we, with
it, descend, into spirit-like mist, to carry us back to the Now.

To me, this was Tectonic.