1
I'll show you the house.
Abraded yarn will light the way.
Follow the ribbon down the hall.
You & me, & serious play.
Up staircase, up dream work,
up architect's melanoma
& nightmare kilims beneath your feet
a pattern from his carcinoma.
[2-4 measure fill]
2
Above the Bukhara floor art
rises applause for Disneyana:
homes filled like theme parks
with things that will no longer matter.
In the banquet room lies the Anatolian
below a marble tabletop.
Gaze upon wilted roses piled high
from Wednesday's flower shop.
3
From the Persian’s fringe, a vaulted ceiling
sits atop columns like a woman's thigh.
Catacombs her incense reveals --
or just something Thursday's hypnotist implied.
Stroll through walk-in closets, too.
Study portraits of petitioners
who wanted to have loved you
imprisoned in the lambent carpet house.
4
Now to bedroom four-poster moans
atop rousing boteh clusters.
Discover your Saturday bones
in the lambent carpet house.
[crescendo or modulation]
The house you cannot enter
because you are already inside.
CHORUS
The skein of thread is lovely
shapely upon the pile crush.
It’s a sleight of foot,
disappearance's tactile touch.
You have arrived.
You have arrived / but
no one's waiting for you
who can remember what you knew. [What you knew]
Last chorus rep only
Only the cordage of days to walk upon
inside the lambent carpet house.
Only the cordage of days to walk upon
inside the lambent carpet house.
BRIDGE A
Walk the soft Moresque.
Dance the Humoresque.
This is the catwalk,
crucible of the clock.
BRIDGE B
Walk the tender jaspé,
deep swirls of velvet blue.
Dance across the catwalk,
revere what you knew.
3 October 2007
music by Scott O'Hare