Before poetry, nary a soul understood the depths of my heart's dilemma over Bob Dylan and his music. My husband did. A man sort of figures it out when his wife spends down to the last penny in her pocket-book for something Dylan-related. Music, books, magazines, t-shirts.
Two years ago my hunger for Bob Dylan stuff was so hot, somebody could have written his name on the back of a restaurant napkin and I probably would have paid them for it. I wouldn't today. I don't think, well, it would all depend on the story behind the napkin.
It's been three years now and I'm still mad crazy for the man and his music. I think he's a desert rose. I would marry him just to dissolve my being into his. I would follow him from town to town, country to country, root to air.
I would never cause him any trouble. I would never get in his way. I would never imprison him with my personality. In fact, I'd quit feeding my personality, let it starve off.
I believe I have come to terms with the whole hollow-shelled desire I feel. I've accepted it as the way I will feel for the rest of my life.
There are so many millions of points of light in the universe. Bob Dylan is only one of them, but, his is the only one I see. His music illuminates my entire world.
So you see, I have gone hard up against the very struggle of a generation of women by talking like this. But, if that is only how these women see it, then they don't really see at all.
I'm not saying, make me your doormat. What I'm saying is, not only make me your doormat, you can make me your hat and coat rack, make me your shoe, make me whatever it takes to get connected to you.
I want to see through
your eyes.
I want to fix myself against
the curving staircase
of your mind.
It takes a long time and a lot of chest pain to get to the place where I can verbalize how I feel about certain songs. Still, my words can only pretend.
I can let the smile
that sweeps across your face
drain my soul.
I can let my fingers break off
in your mountainous hair.
I can split my sternum
open and let you kiss
the nipples of my heart.
I mean, really Lisa, get a grip.
If feelings could be heard. If aroused emotions made noise, mine would sound like an electric saw. With pops and whirrs, clicks and cracks.
Once, while driving home I had come alongside a farming vehicle, with a long arm, shredding arm I suppose, in the up position. We were side by side waiting on the traffic light. When it turned green, the tractor made a wide right, and the arm grabbed hold of the telephone wires, pulling them and a few poles down on top of it. The sound was out-of-this-world loud. The color was a wicked flash of lavender blue across the entire sky and surrounding area. It was frightening and mesmerizing at once.
Consider the moon in all of its fullness. Consider the sun, its brightness. Must everything be so "so". Consider snow, I mean, really consider it. Or rain for that matter, anything wet that falls. Consider a breeze, where it is coming from and where it goes once we can no longer feel it. Does it fall too? Consider a song. A melody. An idea put to music, with words and action. Laughter and tears. Heartbreak and redemption. A story that makes you feel like you are spinning or like you've just been around the world. Consider a man with no hint of weariness, who doesn't spare a thought, who takes an idea, soft as a feather or hard as a stone, and builds a Redwood with it, branches long as the universe, trunk thick as time.
© 2005 by Lisa Zaran.