Damascus

Damascus


Swift fingers – kestrels riding the current of the bass line.
Arching bow swooping, soaring –
Strike, ease, stroke, caress.
Strike, ease, stroke, caress.
Metamorphosing Mercury –
First, a Kingfisher catching swimming notes with charm –
Ease, stroke, caress –
Then, a bird of prey, he strikes –
Master now, he commands the winds.
Aeolus, Boreas – all zephyrs answer to him
As he changes the direction of the great Exhalations
With one easy flick of the wrist.

He is mixing something in the big belly of that bass.
He leans into the neck, his mouth poised open slightly,
As if ready to kiss a lover’s.
His silent whisper penetrates the heart of the instrument.
Strings shimmer and notes salivate under his touch –
A virginal vibrato – a shudder – confused and heady pleasure.

“Tell me your secrets,” he coaxes.
“Tell me all,” he eases.
“Spill me your soul,” he whispers,
Before he strikes.

Notes fanfare to the air,
Blocking out all light by this blinding insight.
A thousand souls beg you to spill, spill, spill
So they too can be converted by this unearthly flare.
Bow your trident, your lightning bolt, your caduceus,
You have the power of a thousand Deities.
But God is but one god.
What you create is Deification!
For when I feel the reverberating touch of your fingers
On the neck, the body, the strings,
On the life vein, the Gaia you play,
Each vibration – from my toenails to my eyelashes –
Shouts:
“I AM A GOD!”
I am a God!

Light returns as Silence whips back its rein and,
Like shadows fleeing from the eyes of the Sun,
All the mini-deities that filled my every fibre with explosions
Surge back like a rip current,
Magnetised implosion – gravitational pull towards the Creator.

The tide – before frozen in awe – surges again –
And in the wave of applause I hold my breath,
Desperate to cling to that last fragment of you.
But as your gaze catches mine,
Caught unawares by your pure humanity –
Your cheeky grin, the little scratch of your chin –
You are but human? –
In disbelief, I gasp,
And the last savoured fragment of your Godliness
I borrowed is returned – I once more mere mortal.
The hole it left as it shot away from me
Tingles,
Like icicles trembling,
Until all glorious discomfort is stolen by your swift kestrel fingers
As you link your arm in mine and ask me to roll you a cigarette.
“You make the perfect cigarettes,” you told me.
Oh, you praise my fingers?
I laugh,
And we both light up.