Ya Te Veo by P. Scott Cunningham

Author:P. Scott Cunningham [Cunningham, P. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781610756341
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press

Now a Word about Twentieth-Century Music

. . . A great number of people, at least in some places, spent their lives with their wretched bodies strapped to looms made of wooden frames and rails, hung with weights, and reminiscent of instruments of torture or cages. It was a peculiar symbiosis which, perhaps because of its relatively primitive character, makes more apparent than any later form of factory work that we are able to maintain ourselves on this earth only by being harnessed to the machines we have invented. That weavers in particular, together with scholars and writers with whom they had much in common, tended to suffer from melancholy and all the evils associated with it, is understandable given the nature of their work, which forced them to sit bent over, day after day, straining to keep their eye on the complex patterns they created.

—W. G. SEBALD

It rots. On its own tree

no less. False promises of love and worse:

rape; murder. Peace: a word

for something besides peace—a moment,

a respite, the cool flavor of a salve

poured across the tongue, fresh

raspberries and cinnamon wavering beneath

the surface, new wine into old skins.

Let it slowly fill your chest, Lost Soul,

fallen like the rest of us from the garden’s

uppermost branches and left for dead, then

saved and given music, food and drink—

this is the tradition we proudly pass down.

This is Morton Feldman. This is Royal Crown.

This is Royal Crown. This is you

beside the roar of the family hearth,

feet stockinged and propped on an ottoman,

pipe shoved slantwise in your mouth,

your wife, beautiful and supine inside

the tasseled arms of a Turkish rug,

the children with their grandparents

for the weekend, an open bottle of RC

in the ice bucket. Now, throw on some

music: Morton Feldman’s Piano

and String Quartet—79 minutes

of shimmering near-silence and woe.

Relax. Feel your heart’s armor melt down.

Listen to Feldman! Drink Royal Crown!

Drink Royal Crown! Listen to Feldman!

Walk with him through postwar Berlin;

fans asking for autographs on albums

as if he were V. I. Lenin and not the Ringo

of the New York School, a Ukrainian

Jew who cannot take a step in Kreuzberg

without feeling what kind of voices pool

beneath the paving stones. They scream at me!

he says, and rides the tram staring at

the tracks, the wires tumescent with

electricity, pine trees bleeding sap,

and every guttural voice—though friendly—

calling up the faces of the drowned.

(This message brought to you respectfully.)

Buy Royal Crown! Listen to Feldman’s

Intersection for Magnetic Tape.

Feel bored? Confused? For $19.99

our scholars will explain all hundred

and something scores to you

in the privacy of your own home with RC’s

Feldman: It’s Not an Inquisition! tapes.

Call the number on your television,

and in four to six weeks, we’ll deliver

a lifetime’s worth of Feldman know-how

in fun, easy-to-listen-to lectures

you can take to the gym, or let soak in

while driving to that job you’re better than.

(Limited time offer. Copyright Royal Crown.)

Copyright Morton Feldman for all

the times on commuter trains when

Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” faded out

and nothingness seemed to take its place—

a cavernous auxiliary silence hidden

in a kink in the headphone wires

but no, the screen says, “Crippled Symmetry”

whatever the fuck that means. Don’t

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