The siren call beyond the treeline

[sovay]

I am barely sleeping these days, but sometime long after it was light out, I had a dream of the sea I wanted to stay asleep for. A lot of it was objects, like a cabinet of things that would be stories if you asked for them, ropes and stays and burnt-edged maps, Fresnel lenses, the dry bleached shells of crabs. I was watching a kind of shadow show on sheets hung up like sails. In the mummers' play of the sea, the shipwrecked man is thrown ashore in chains of kelp as red as rotted iron, entangled in the nets that were his clothes before the jealous salt and the workings of the sun. The tide-lines duel for him with splintered staves of lobster pot and bucklers of driftwood, high and low until the last wave tumbles out and the magician kneels over him, one hand upraised with an eel the color of wet pewter signing infinity about her wrist. When he comes back to life, he's dressed in guisers' ribbons of weed, but he trudges inland, following her, without a look back. I was woken up abruptly and everything else drained out of my head.

I just found the music video for Timber Timbre's "Black Water," which is pretty great. I love how much they sound like the score to a movie that never existed.

I will be in New York City tomorrow for the Marvell Rep's staged reading of Sholem Asch's God of Vengeance (Got fun nekome, 1907). Given how I've been feeling for the last more weeks than I can count, I don't think this is the kind of trip where I can ask who's free to hang out, but I should do one of those sometime.

Comments

[readingthedark.livejournal.com]

I slept once. It was neato.

(More importantly: I wish sleep upon you. My latest trick to try to tweak my insomnia is rising before dawn. So far, I sleep just as little and it hasn't worked yet and, semi-oddly, makes my eyes hurt, but it's my newest crazy idea...)

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Sovay!

In the mummers' play of the sea
the shipwrecked man is thrown ashore
in chains of kelp as red as rotted iron,
entangled in the nets that were his clothes
before the jealous salt and the workings of the sun.

The tide-lines duel for him
with splintered staves of lobster pot and bucklers of driftwood,
high and low
until the last wave tumbles out
and the magician kneels over him,
one hand upraised
with an eel the color of wet pewter
signing infinity about her wrist.

When he comes back to life,
he's dressed in guisers' ribbons of weed,
but he trudges inland,
following her,
without a look back.

All that. All that.

Wow.

(also, the "Black Water" video was excellent, and in a few minutes I'm going to be posting one for you.)

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

That Timber Timbre video is amazing. Particularly because I can't figure out if it was actually shot underwater, or whether those sea creature shots were larded in from other sources.

[sovay]

Particularly because I can't figure out if it was actually shot underwater, or whether those sea creature shots were larded in from other sources.

I think it's all puppetry, which impresses me even more.

[sovay]

I slept once. It was neato.

I keep hearing this from people.

More importantly: I wish sleep upon you.

Thank you. Likewise . . .

[sovay]

All that. All that.

Heh. I hadn't considered it as a poem. Thank you.

also, the "Black Water" video was excellent

I recommend the band, no reservations; I got them from handful_ofdust and they've been on repeat with Arcade Fire and Talking Heads. I'd like to think it's doing something good for my head, but only if I can get it in shape to do anything with the results.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you've not been sleeping. I hope sometime soon you can have a like dream and get more time to enjoy it, but I'm glad you retained this memory, and I thank you for the sharing of it.

I hope you enjoyed the staged reading!

[margavriel.livejournal.com]

I love how much they sound like the score to a movie that never existed.

Check out this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSOD3SMwSd0

The whole thing was concocted by this music group (relatively recently, I think), to look perfectly like a scene from a (non-existent) 1930s Czech movie.

[sovay]

I hope sometime soon you can have a like dream and get more time to enjoy it, but I'm glad you retained this memory, and I thank you for the sharing of it.

You're welcome. It's rare enough right now that I sleep enough to dream.

I hope you enjoyed the staged reading!

I did!

[sovay]

The whole thing was concocted by this music group (relatively recently, I think), to look perfectly like a scene from a (non-existent) 1930s Czech movie.

I love that sort of thing.