II
St. Expedite
St. Expedite
"I'm goin' back to Storyville, that's where I long to be
Ain't no time to ask me why, everything about Storyville is just a part of me
Since I was just this high, goin' back to old designs
I know my way around.
Friends I know will shake my hand, nothing changes on Desire, that street of my hometown
The street where I make my stand, there's a cafe called the Pup that never shuts door
You can drop around most any time you choose
There's a lady tailored down in something cut low, she rock n rolls the old piano
With a King called the Blues
Goin' back to Storyville, gone to take my horn, 50 suits, a brush & comb
I just can't stand & wait til I'm back where I was born
My Storyville, my home."
Pirate's alley, short-cut from the Place D'Armes to the Rue de Royale lay empty; the hour for wantons satiated in abandonment expired, the adjoining garden of St. Antoine at peace. Near imperceptibly a manhole cover at the garden's entry stirred as if a streetcar were passing, then gradually groaning and toppling over, the concussion launched a volley of pigeons over the plaza into the twilit fog. As the ponderous disc ceased its clamorous spin, a curious emblem lay embossed upon the underside; what perhaps could be construed as a stick-figure of a horn-headed dancer. And this was odd because New Orleans had no sewers in 1863.
The head of an apparition slowly emerged from the hole and a deadly pair of eyes green as kryptonightingales flew in a quick survey. Cautiously the magicienne hoisted her lithe figure into the Vieux Carre, a breeze of anise, fennel and wormwood's delerium stirring in her long brown locks . The distinct incongruity of her tight biker jacket, jeans and rugged messenger-bag slung across her torso with the present's antebellum fashions gave dispatch to her purpose. Eiderdown made her way past the Absinthe Room, heading uptown destined for the center of the "District". Through the acrid bouquet of bar and bougainvillea and the necrotic gutter reek she went to rendezvous with her sister, Cricket at the throne of Storyville. Cricket was in the employ of Lady Cloud Walker's Palace: five-stories of oppulent galleries and columns on the corner of Customhouse and Villere where she in her capacity as oriental danseuse under the auspices of the Compagnie d'Opera Invisible Thibet was votary of Kalachakra Cham, Tibetan for Time-Machine tantra dance. Many lurid hourglasses gave up their painted sands to the circuit of her feet; many rapt auditors attained rapturous empowerment in the mysterious circle of her destreza.
Passing beneath mansard roofs with peaked dormers and florid shutters overladen with wisteria, Eiderdown glimpsed sunken arcades' shady enclosures lush with bromeliads, begonias and pirouette staircases winding serpentine through fern and ivy. Balconies loomed overhead whose ancient iron railings' hand-wrought airy and graceful patterns were ciphered in a delicate cobweb of baffling. New Orleans was stirring now, and the Big Easy would be awake before long. She continued on her mission, though she longed to linger in the still seething fragrance of night-blooming jasmine, proceeding to the edge of the Quarter toward the old Mortuary Chapel, that Atre Perilleus that lay on Rampart Street with the Cemetery behind it. She had an appointment there first with St. Expedite.
Arriving at the church, she slipped inside the massive oak door pausing to adjust her eyes to the still dim lighting.
Retreating into the rear, she found the statue of the saint. Reaching into her leather messenger-bag, she withdrew several items: a small parterre offering consisting of a slice of pound cake and a glass of water, a red candle and some fresh flowers. Arranging these at the foot of the Saint, she lit the small candle and softly intoned :
"Actiones nostras, quaesumus Expeditus, aspirando praeveni et adiuvando prosequere: ut cuncta nosta operatio a te semper incipiat et per ta coepta finiatur.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum: quod cras non est heri erit."
She heard the soft click of a release mechanism as the passwords of the Latin prayer engaged Expedite's clockwork innards.Trapped beneath the left foot of the saint was the figure of a crow sculpted such that a single word was crafted in Latin upon a ribbon emerging from its beak: "Cras" = Tomorrow. Reaching into its beak she grasped the word and twisted, feeling the puzzle piece release from its jigsaw recess in the banderole and plying it loose she drew it forth, suddenly wriggling like an other-worldly catepillar come alive; captive in her grasp.
Looking down she saw a tampon sized but no longer inert "thing" threaded with thin phlorescent pulsing veins configuring into graphemes rapidly metamorphing just beneath its surface, contorting in resistance mildly in her gentle hand like an infant's pretense to some vague distemper, intending instinctually to evoke maternal preserve.
Without warning, the warp and woof of the sanctuary hiccuped like a prayer mat shaken over an abyss and a monstrous black-handed void clenched the room in a terrifying fist tightening and twisting in a tourniquet typhoon drawn to the "Cras" cavity. With a sound like a child sipping noisily through a straw, the small red candle she had lit began absorbing the hideous phenomenon and she watched as it gradually dwindled, a shrinking crepe glove of charnel smoke, diminishing to a black pearl which hovered at the tip of the flame and vanished.
Still clutching the peculiar translinguistic critter, she placed it in her shoulder-bag nestled in the incantation bowl which her Sisters had obtained in prior preparation and secured it. Setting the flowers in the glass of water and breathing a word of gratitude she extinguished the candle. Remembering to put a pair of St. Expedite's relic medals into her pocket, she left at the chapel's rear exit. "Box-jumper", indeed!
Relieved at the narrow escape and glad all 5' 9" of her was gliding across Basin St. still in her snakeskin boots; she cut through the cemetery and Eclipse Alley, evaporating the remaining seven blocks to Lady Cloud Walker's Palace, the most auspicious seraglio in all the histrionic libretti of Storyville.
Eiderdown, too tall now to conform to that petite magician's assistant known in the parlance as a box -jumper, when younger had been precisely that. Until the age of sweet sixteen she had been tutored by her grandfather, performing at his side arcane antiquities refreshed; passed down from his own father, the esteemed Professor Balthasar Hoffman whose performances perplexed the great illusionists Maskelynes, DeKolta & Devant. Often she was required to crouch in a tiny space triggering an apparatus with her toes or distract the audience at precisely the right moment while sneaking a device on or off the stage gracefully yet invisibly. Nearly a decade later, for her reknown as Zaïmph, Veil of the Illusionati, she was awarded the prestigious Mandrake d'Or" Paris, France and Prix du Public" Grand Prix Magiques de Monte Carlo in recognition of her professional accomplishments. Diverting from trapdoors and false panels for the present, she sought with her sister anachronauts the enchantment non plus ultra. She had been reared well amongst those who excavated the ancient art's most elusive secrets, now she held her own.
Climbing up the steps, the entrance was through a passageway adorned with a couple of statues representing divinities of light and in whose hands were held lighted flambeaux. Beyond this lay the drawing-room, still abandoned at this early hour. Familiar with the location of her friend's quarters that lay on the 4th floor she passed the decorations of the rooms: pictures that hung on the walls, plated mirrors, the delicately tinted furniture embodying a sybarite's dream of luxury and repose. The fantastic and bizarre aspect of splendor without comfort, glitter and sparkle suggestive of death and decay- gave rise to singular reflections. But as the infamous "Blue Book" advertised, it takes a heap of lovin' to make a home a house... Ascending the staircase, she arrived and signaling discretely with her knock, the door opened and she stepped into a world remote.
A slight young woman with very long jet black braided hair secured by a carved piece of turquoise set in silver received her with an affectionate glad embrace. Cricket was of Himalayan origins - her skin was a dusky brick-red and her eyes deep as night swimming in a mountain lake. She wore Tibetan clothing consisting of a long, ankle-length dress and underneath it, an open shirt folded up into the dress and a rainbow colored, striped apron over her dress. At her waist a golden crystal phurba ritual dagger was tucked in the cloth belt.
Suspended through the vaulted ceiling an immense, multi-hued cylinder protruded, slowly revolving; nearly a yard in diameter and longer in length. Covered in the ornate carved symbols of the ancient tongue of ancient Dakini script, its mirrored inset petitions spun in silent rotations. Windows were spaced such that the sun's rays, striking the symbols, sent numinous flickers of light taking shape as sprites' dance trippingly became the transcription of carven prayers infiltrating the pores of every surface in a translinguistic transubstantiation constituting the Chronicon.
Eiderdown knew that this was the Lady Cloud Walker's prayer wheel, turning via an enigmatic orrery extending above it on the fifth floor in the cupola of the Palace. On each of the four walls was a curious circular mirror fashioned of seven metals; whose concave surfaces caught the reflections from above and focused them, converging upon a finely carved table which held her ritual implements: dorje, drilbu, damaru and a unique hand-held prayer wheel which stood upright upon a stand. This singular device contained a minute astrarium inside, mirroring the orrery at the summit of the Palace which, when revolved, spun so evoking harmonic resonant alignments between its spheres thereby issuing forth sounds with peculiar properties when set in motion.
A magnificent etagere stood in the corner upon which were statuettes of deities benign and wrathful, the work of artisans from the roof of the world. Adjoining this was an armoire on the shelves of which were stored linen wear and bed clothing. Next to the armoire was a damask sofa and over the mantel, a statue of Vajrayogini draped with several white silk khata scarves. A large sideboard stood in the corner next to a window on the other side of the chimney, and in this was stored a collection of texts. Another armoire of costumes, a table and the bed and armchairs covered with the finest damask completed the furnishings in the room. The hangings of the bed, even the mosquito bar, were of lace, and an exquisite basket of flowers hung suspended from the tester of the bed. Around the walls were suspended geometrical paintings that Cricket described as 'kyil khor' landscapes. The bloodstained carpet was of the finest velvet.
Cricket reached over her head and took hold of a small cord centered in the base of the immense prayer wheel above and pulling down, the floor of the cylinder descended like an attic's trapdoor, attached to a spring-like corkscrew lift.
"This will lift you into the orrery chamber above, where you can relax undisturbed. You'll find clothing in the cedar chest over there in the corner which should not draw you undue attentions of their own accord. Should be about your size, if I judged correctly. I must leave a while to make final arrangements for our departure, but I shall return by noon. "
As she left, Eiderdown felt the impetus of the morning's experiences tumbling over her, wipe-out in the pipeline... temporal jetlag. She reached into her pocket and drew out an Ashton panatella. She opened the double french doors out onto Cricket's 4th floor balcony and stepped out, breathing the intoxicating mingled New Orleans of another day, another age. Lighting the cigar she surveyed the rooftops and bagnios below: the muddy street, people looking down, watching where they stepped. She knew it was littered with snakes, rats and the virulent remains of corpses. She became aware of the conspicuous figure she posed, here not so very far removed from the street. Going back inside, she shut the door. She decided to explore the curiosity upstairs.
Entering the lift, she engaged the riser. Ascending through the cylindrical shaft until it came to a stop, a portal loomed in the tube and opening it, she felt like Dorothy Gale stepping for the first time into technicolor. The entire fifth floor was one spacious vaulted gallery. Through the dim she sleepwalked through shafts of light dancing full of dustmotes. She had never seen an orrery before, except in some kid's movie... the Dark Crystal? Yeah, that was the one. This was smaller, more magnificent; a glorious arcane Tree. Its burnished surfaces glowered with secrets. She walked beneath the different sized spheres in admiration, drawing on her Ashton. The Tree was alive; turning! If her grandfather could have seen this... What motive force quickened the fruit of this Tree? There was no electricity in the building...
It was the Kalachakra's solar system: the spheres Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury centered on a slightly raised circular platform shaped as a large green lotus, surrounded by eight articulated caryatid female figures. The planets were arrayed concentricly around the axis through which she had accessed the room. The lotus itself was cushioned and soft. Situated on a small table against the axis was a white conch, red gong, and a black jewel.
Something glittering drew her eye upward. Here was a mystery- reaching beneath an orb, she took hold of the necklace dangling there. Hanging on the chain, a gold bee, a symbol of her panageis Sisters. Looking closer she saw it was dangling from a compartment concealed in the sphere. Pivoting the curved panel, she reached into the interior and found a small blue gourd with the necklace around it. Drawing it forth she inspected it. In small carved letters, the hollowed gourd was labeled Xtabentun. She vaguely remembered the legends her Mayan friend Xquiq had once mentioned... A mythic turbo-charged ritual metheglin of the Yucateca Maya. Just in time for cigar's companion. Taking a long pull, she felt a flash of jasmine race through her. Meli mœnomenon. A cordial, tasting of the entirety of the seasons; in a golden age distilled... forever lately comes that sudden sun such as we remember; lustral, volcanic lineament of ungratified desire, reborn.
Opening the ledger of Dream, vision, like a wave foaming against a rock, withdrew to hurl itself once more, entering and departing this vast amphitheatrum with a sound both haunting and plaintive; at length altogether invading the interiority of her view.
Like the sobbing of mercy, some harmonica quote
the blues on the back of the butterfly coat;
elegies and operas caught in the throat,
blues on the back of the butterfly coat
Sovereign burden, our kingdom remote;
ashes we offer, our dust we devote
these blues on the back of the butterfly coat...
The scrolling jewell of her thoughts receded in pursuit of extinguishment, that vanishing point; the monad of consciousness itself, situating transports to this temple outside time.
Wait. I know this trick: hmmm, wasn't it called The Mescaline Scarves of Princess Papillon? Crowned with the winged head-dress of antennae horns, mesmerized she ascends the whirlwind of silks in willing suspension of disbelief; the whole cardboard house of Kansas gobbled up in a tie-dye cyclone. Unfurl, fly into celestial regions. Fear nothing, there is a watch over you; and if your wings, like those of Icarus, melt before the sun, we are here to ease your fall.
And there, a lapis lazuli skinned King came for her, a velocity of heads, eyes, shoulders and arms. His heads and arms swarming blue, red, white and gold.
"If you can just... get your mind together, come across to me."
Standing behind this sheer curtain, I move to meet him; inflowing his every orifice all molten and one with want, i close my eyes and tremble, anticipating heaven's contact.
It is coming. The magnet of his imminent fingers draw each hair of my body, the shudder of his approach disintegrates kisses. Winds disjoint the air, wanton with wishes. Under the tree Time's grave is laid, beguiled by love to lie down in the stream of our kiss pouring the Milky Way around the world, where we sail in the last ship.
"Lift me, raise me to the winding waterway. Set me among the imperishable stars."
He raises her in his arms, veins crossing like ivy on the branches of a tree.
Seething centuries flowed down his breast between square muscles; and the furnace of his breathing shook his sides. His bone girdle garnished with skulls rattled down to his knees.
Trumpets and violins surged forward in her mad honey, lava's smouldering wings bursting the hive of her aflame, straining upward from the dark hold of the lighthouse keep.
Her earrings were each a hollow pearl filled with liquid scent. A little drop would fall every moment through minute perforations in the pearl moistening her naked shoulder. It was a fresh, indefinable emanation, of honey, pepper, incense, roses and the odour of lightning.
Delirious omniscience, everything under the influence of time, and he is time and knowing all, writing our cyphers with anatomy. Our spines bear the gigawatt burden of a zillion volts, our bones groan, storm-wracked timbers of eternity's ship, surrounded by an aureole aflame like the female saints who fill their beds with God's angel, hanging fire between the flanks of night in lascivious incendiary absolution.
In Xambala did Kulkukan a pleasure dome decree
where Afqa's sacred river ran down to the endless sea
On the eight petals of her revolving green lotus, the eight mechanical statues had come giggling to life. Each had three eyes and was adorned with a crown. In the east was dancing a Radiant Black Lady and a Smokey Lady with four faces: black, red, yellow and white and eight arms, in their hands holding bowls of sandlewood, saffron, camphor and musk incense; a bell, a lotus, other flowers and black yaktail fans.
In the south mincing amok was a Radiant Red Lady and a Mirage Lady with four faces: red, yellow, white and blue and eight arms, in their hands holding a butter-lamp, a necklace, a crown, bracelet, scarf, ritual apron, earring, an anklet and red yaktail fans.
Shimmying in the north were a Radiant White Lady and a Sparks-in-the-Sky Lady with four faces: white, black, red and yellow and eight arms, in their hands holding bowls of milk, water, magic medicine, beer and bowls of nectar, an elixir that brings realization, ambrosia, truffles and white yaktail fans.
In the west boogied a Radiant Yellow Lady and a Butter Lamp Lady with four faces: yellow, white, blue and red and eight arms, in their hands holding a conch, flute, gem, and a tambourine, and in the left a guitar, a drum, a gong, a trombone and yellow yaktail fans.
Savage, holy and enchanted each super-numinous can-can coquette flickered with their flashing eyes and floating hair as they romped and rollicked simultaneously squealing a Betty Booped laughing gas chorus of: "Dukey Khorlo, Dukey Khorlo, oo la la! Weave a circle round her thrice, she's Honeydew of paradise!" to a careening Star Wars cantina band calliope.
The overloaded carrousel fluttered and hummed round and round:
... OM SHRI KALA-CHAKRA HUM HUM PHAT.
OM PHREM VISHVA-MATA HUM HUM PHAT OM DANA PARAMITA HUM HUM PHAT OM SHILA
…KSHANTI, VIRYA, DHYANA, PRAJNA, UPAYA, PRANI-DHANA, BALA, JNANA...
PARAMITA HUM HUM PHAT
OM VAJRA-SATTVA SAMAYA...
The syntax of the orrery fused with sprung clock-work of her infinities. Cascading italics of passion paraphrased her, resourceful in the fluency of the kiss.
Well written, her phantom lover, fashioned from Time's empassioned memoires. She read the burning rubric hidden between the lines, conjuring the distillate of her own most ardent desires which at last became so real, so tangible, that she shivered wondering at her power to imagine him, so lost was she, subsumed, beneath the abundance of their attributes.
With his diamond thunderbolt throbbing in the cumulus of her, the cobalt blue capacitor of all that ever was discharged its shuddering moth. The accumulation of all that will ever be, soaring, homing irresistibly toward her whirling triskelion jackpot. She could feel him, wet blue cedar berry searching inexorably the inner-most chambers through the whorled core of her nautilus for that compass circumpunct held within her windrose; a Tibet roulette arriving in the triple zero pocket of Fate's rapture. She, become the Empress o'er the uncharted face of tomorrow.
She awoke curled on the lotus, beside her was a battered old harmonica and a yellowed sheaf from an old pin-up girl calendar. Focusing her blurring eyes on the message scrawled across the months she read: "Play for me the song of life, once upon a time in the East meets West, O variegated and righteous babe."
It was signed: Duke Khorlo, Big Daddy Kalachakra himself.
Some moments in time touch upon the pulse within the vein of poetry but without effort, as lips touch lips; then the confines of the waking world yield to unbounded magic and this fancy's again set free: that all we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Someday when things are right and like they should be we can do all this again by putting a quarter in the Holiday Inn vibrator bed and taking a special madness pill... but wait, hold over there, we can do THAT now. We can do almost anything now. .. and why not?"
- Hunter Thompson: First Visit with Mescalito, 1969
Posts
