ÜBERMÜTTER'S DEATH DANCE

LAURA HINTON

B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ] Buffalo, New York

Übermütter's Death Dance by Laura Hinton Copyright © 2016 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Cover design, interior design, and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza Cover photo by Bernard Roy, with image concept by Elizabeth New Drawing of skulls taken from "Real American Heroes," by Vickers Gringo (Paul Daniel Lyon, 1978-2010), front and back cover, with Photoshop enhancement provided by Ronni Raygun Thomas and Elizabeth New First Edition ISBN: 978-1-60964-241-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015958570 BlazeVOX [books] 131 Euclid Ave Kenmore, NY 14217 Editor@blazevox.org

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1

The sun dropped its leaf like a sun diary turning its page to shadow . . . death closing in.

—Barbara Guest, "Nighthawk"

 

15

Clair-Voyage / Le Rayol (Shared Death Experience)

This sunlit sky is the sign of luminance dissolving into radiance. —Tibetan Book of the Dead1

A table is made though they say all are taken A live lobster is boiled in front of tourists’ eyes Ordering all beings of flesh we are out of order as mothers line up with sand-baked children leave dirty crusts on bathroom floor Sign in French instructs: No Dripping One waltzes through a darkness versus radiance light of blue rays rapping our heads —impossible to tell if “not yet discovered” means a marketed site whose pseudo-isolation has no name “hidden paradise” forgets fortune-hunters shopping coastlines . . . watery boundaries permit . . . no shells merge . . . bland optical equipment floats body lacking . . . (any kind of proper suction . . .) extra / ordinary system . . . counting . . . liquids

                                                                                                               1 Robert Thurman, trans., Tibetan Book of the Dead (New York: Bantam Books, 1993); from "a prayer for the reality in-between.”

 

16

in a rhythm like mathematics . . . wavering . . . greens rivulets seem… appear . . . spreading night dreams day dreams wet basins . . . leaking . . . white channel fluids "scene" “amplitude” or . . . “luminance” “dissolve/ing” No humming, no camera stops for the seeded glitter a silver parole via word stream, arrives “le rayol” calls for a sea screen— Typology of the bottom? like “lumière” voiceless “lumineuse” because men imagined fluids to be “female” So the feminine undertow might have sound not speech I am the flesh of a cheek moist I am sink- ing Flotsam debris scandalizes

 

17

far out at sea angel bay rounds le littoral we are watching water breasts heaving . . .

And you my bright child along this writing path a hummingbird visits longs to get in hits my window I fancy it caged, like me my music scored with your lips a frog perpetuates my maternity leaps through recollected spongy warm words yours but my breasts fallen as if by shock

People on the beach glow from here at the watery distance appear / ing float / ing a / way all say: Merci Merci Millefois Les feuilles we hear the tones human vowels on waves diphthongs sing “the leaves, the leaves” the pastries we didn’t eat what we couldn’t buy, couldn’t pronounce didn’t need A “rupture” for every footprint etched in delicate sloped rock

 

18

I am picking you out of a sand pit We had everything to fall in to What could I do—foster the width of this circumference? clarity . . . paradise . . . Your 'geni-osity" swallows mermaid . . . mirage . . . Suited body wades down in upward thrusts Yellow porpoise wanders by laying cool tracks its silicone air a blast the sea just a tourist rip-off sky plus breeze ten bumping heads children buoyed in off-limit zones a boat, a play thing zooms past—I see it all at light speed the Buddha’s landfill * Prayer for the dead: Now this mirage you see is the sign of earth dissolving in water. This smoke is the sign of water dissolving into fire. These fireflies are the sign of fire dissolving into wind. This candle flame is the sign of wind dissolving into consciousness. This moonlit sky is the sign of consciousness dissolving into luminance. This sunlit sky is the sign of luminance dissolving into radiance. This dark sky is the sign of radiance dissolving into imminence. This predawn twilight sky is the sign of imminence dissolving into clear light.1

                                                                                                               1 Thurman, Tibetan Book of the Dead, 123-124.

 

19

Übermütter's Message At 9:39 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on August 9, a NYPD detective called my American cell phone. That is, I believe a NYPD detective called my American cell phone. I didn’t answer my phone. I didn't recognize the 718 Brooklyn, New York, telephone prefix. I was in Nice, France. At 9:39 a.m. EDT, I was in a doctor's office in Nice, France. I was admiring a young woman's newborn baby in a doctor’s office in Nice, France. I was talking and talking in Nice, France, with this young woman in the doctor’s office. I was taking pictures of her newborn baby. The young woman was about the age of my adult son. I was recalling my own son and talking about him to this young woman with her newborn baby. I was talking about my adult son not as a man but as a newborn baby like her own. I was remembering with startling presence the emotion of loving my newborn son—as if my son, an adult, had just been born. All time collapses in the love of my son, at the time that a NYPD detective is calling me. * Actually, I do not know if a NYPD detective ever called me. Later, I did, in fact, call a NYPD detective. He told me that he was very sorry that my son was dead. When at 9:39 a.m. EDT on August 9, 2010, a strange Brooklyn number flashed on my cellular phone screen, I assumed it was a mistake. I was in Nice, France. A message was left on my cell phone. The message is still on my cell phone. I do not erase it. It has been a year now. I will not listen to the message. I will not erase it. I have never listened to any message. All time collapses . . . remains suspended—in another time. * Two days later, on August 10, 2010, my son's girlfriend told me via a different telephone that my son was found in his room, in Brooklyn, New York, "not breathing."

 

20

I told my son's girlfriend that my son, therefore, was "dead." My son's girlfriend did not use the word, "dead."

 

21

Depuis (Death Dance) Scored text for voice and movement—two readers and a dancer (Solo voices alternate lines) pp Since voice messages and text messages do not translate over the Atlantic / The dance: Hands surround face head leans right p Since babies grow to men and man to child / left arm spins and makes basin figure with both hands, left leg slightly rises fp Since lullabies are grounded in someone’s music past / arms sweep past feet and aim left ff Since a grandmother stopped walking / left leg reaches upward with alternating arms stretched in air p Since a father stopped talking / knees bow out, hands cover ears pp Since a father disappeared / bent knees point left, hands fold together in prayer form but facing the ground p Since brothers are not kin and cannot see / right leg extended, arms fold toward chest fp Since a few of us are gathered around a tree / trunk lifts, arms form a circle, spin ff Since the giant bulb blew up your movie’s green screen / full body leaps in air twice, arms make big circles f Since a man fell out of the sky past my window in despair / right leg forward, full body collapses, rolls to the ground p Since the gardener drank all the cognac / then rolls back up into a half-scissor shape, eyes look left pp Since fireflies scanned the forest in the dark / full body turns left, right knee bends forward (Chorus:) fp Since we slept in the dirt by a creek at 4-Corners / right leg forms triangle ff Since we did a corpse pose in Death Valley looking at stars / full body crawls between the two speakers, lies on floor, hands and feet splayed

 

22

ff Since the memory dangles chillingly in the yellow leaves / sitting in floor posture, holds gaze toward and as if through an audience fp Since grief postpones p Since the astral holds / (Dancer sings lines with Chorus:) pp Since you went away I reach for you . . . You suddenly disappear . . .

 

23

Coroner’s Report A boy who had a mother now is Case No. 431. A boy who grew to be a beautiful man now is Body No. K10-3964 in the Brooklyn Morgue. The Coroner's laboratory will take at least 6 weeks to process the toxicology report. It will be at least 2 months before the Coroner's Report can be issued by City Hall. I have to make 3 phone calls, visit 1 Police Precinct, and swear before 2 judges to get my son's keys and wallet back. This takes nearly 2 months. The mortician demands: How many copies of the Death Certificate do I want? The chairman of the Graveyard Association wants to know: Will I buy 1 burial plot, or 2? I wonder if we should keep the numbers down at graveside. I wonder if 100 people can fit into 1 small room. I wonder if 2 girlfriends—1 current, 1 former—can fit into 1 small room. I wonder if 8 beers over 10 hours can kill an adult male aged 32. * I am given a primer book on grief, in which a bereaved mother asks: How many children do I now have—3, or 2? My son, my only child, is dead. Am I supposed to wonder: am I still a mother?

 

24

As He Goes, A Lullaby (Putting My Child to Sleep in His Room) Spoken and sung text over recorded collage piano / vocal phrases from "Goodnight, My Someone" (The Music Man) and Hindu mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum"1 Leather bracelets loop slender wrists guitar strings stretch musician hands chains identity the artist plastic identifies the man pairs of socks that wrap long feet gathered up and boxed sweaters knit unknit this summer night ‘I wish you may and I wish you might. . . .’ Our star is shining its brightest light window breaks summer’s shade sunny Sun-day you drift to sleep drift . . . to sleep . . . singing . . . I'm playing . . . as you go . . . I’m singing ‘Sleep tight my someone, sleep tight my love . . . ’ my love my love drift . . . to sleep . . .                                                                                                                1 Phrases from "Goodnight, My Someone" (lyrics by Alan J. Lerner, copyright 1966); and Om Mani Padme Hum, a Hindu mantra, meaning, in the words of Ram Dass, "God in unmanifest form is like a jewel in the middle of a lotus, manifest in my heart." (See Ram Dass, The Only Dance There Is [New York: Double Day, 1970]).

 

25

‘that which is beyond all’ Om Om Om Hum Hum Hum ‘we are’ Om Mani Padme Hum * In the middle of a bright jeweled lotus clouds rise In the bedroom, electric c(h)ords snake to a higher amplifier

‘Goodnight, my love, for goodnight . . .’

 

26

Not / Night

First wedding night. But first mourning night?

—Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary1

not falling asleep not falling into anything not real not

him not you not "person" / not "subject" just not

resting on this newly bought

french mattress au latex naturel raided from

some tree in the Amazonian jungle colonized by terrible terrible "au naturel"

stupid thoughts—son's childhood shrink said when i rejected

at night

had him

—this night, my night dark dark

night previously was

reading he was still alive i was

reading

mattress built for

comfort shell my body on—only

last night, poor Katherine of Aquitaine her prison her nunnery her loss

of inherited lands but it was Richard

Lion de Coeur her son, her heart-son, dead son, "Lyon," my darling, my darling

darkling

heart-boy

                                                                                                               1  Roland  Barthes,  Mourning  Diary,  Richard  Howard,  trans.  (New  York:  Hill  and  Wang,  2012),  entry  dated  October  26,  1977.  

 

27

you, Paul . . . Daniel

Lyon, like the French

town

you were born

on a mattress—me, both

we all

disappear—

or change—book

left my hand

on a French beach

me, swimming late rays days, lounging

longing (watching little boy dive)

to finish

huge book life story huge too huge

American

volume in English in this barricade—riches

the placid sea

where could it be?

it—the book

disappeared!

where? to?

(i retraced every single

walkway swim-way beach-comber's passage-ways

funny ladies in hats no no je ne sais pas

 

28

un gros livre? trop gros? moi . . .

noooo nothing so big—so dear—can

just disappear like that

into the azur . . . the air . . . the water fountains misted tourists

HURRY the peaches are sweet the French are happy

pas vrai any particular

life lived against bay, this peace, this light, this beam assuages

leads deepening days open thought: my mistral—mis / trial

by words

not / night

over

so the book was found behind a steep bench

and i slept and slept well that night

*

night before nights

i weep over context

someone else's fate

to lose a boy

mon coeur

 

29

my own

HEART

doesn't

beat

he was

born

of my

chest

BEAT BEAT

the rhythm of the wail

the Reality of "3D"

newness for him baby dry eyes

hears heart of heart

to his own beating

heart / measure (beat beat)

found woman of his

heart / dream

measure to measure about to end now, mums

narrative

forms shadow

to grow against solace

in sun, the solstice I perceive like rain

is this why i watched that man in the glasses on the floating mattress

 

30

in this ocean?

no compromise with Real (fake) song

not one even a Frenchman would throw

book a hefty weight

(i knew it could be found)

and you, in bed, dead weigh, sleeping, deep, usual, not your night

laying here—i am a sunny Sunday, this son's day, i am not there—i am

my nighttime, on a mattress, nightmare, reading about

an ancient queen's silent ancient

pain, crying

i am not

sleeping i am not

gaining

anything awake

weeping is not altogether

this terrible terrible night of

deepest abject beautiful doorway opening so wide

in the dream that i feel the breeze yet i can't

even taste a tepid glass

of mother's milk