Toru Takemitsu

I've had a tough grapple with atonal music. Not the dissonance … no that exotic touch tickled my fancy long ago; it's the stagnation, the desperately boring lack of progress I associated with atonality. The music scorned me with its intense intellectual quality – “you're just not smart enough to understand this music.” But what enjoyment could I glean from a composer's circle jerk? Like baroque, these compositions felt like a computer could generate them: algorithms of harmony without any touch of emotion.

And for all the chills and shivers coursing through my body from the dissonance, I never felt any sense of fear. WHY!!!? Why would these composers disregard the most poignant aspect of their music?

But then comes Toru Takemitsu, and my new love for horror music. I'm serious about this … treat it like a horror film. Sit in a dark room, turn up the volume, and enjoy the fright. The western orchestration churns out a fair few petrifying moments, but that's just the shrapnel from the Shakuhachi and Biwa duel. In awe I hear Takemitsu employ the entirety of the Shakuhachi's timbrel might – and yes all of those strange air sounds come from this one instrument.

November Steps

Lugubrious Libations

A hubbub arises so soon and smooth,

with serendipitous wishes perhaps I'll swoon!

over slightly weighted verse,

or if a frothy stout turns terse,

over the mutterings of fellows

and contrivances bellowed -

through this rabid atmosphere hallowed

and often oozzily gallowed.

Gallants strung from their necks

by their appetite to flex

a salacious complex.

Strewn thoughts mired

through the despicably attired

bar.

But monsieur do not turn a snide eye to their antics,

you sitting a verily reclused dapper hermit.

Provide a self portrait of your socially obstinate creature,

the conversational island lost to wanton scribblings

and grand gay glibbings

of the Savannah beheld.

Here the obstacle tells of two fanciful spells

a story embellished of inner turmoil,

or the outward dissections of a staggering crowd …

… The latter please yes indeedy, the latter!

'Tis the hour for flesh shopping:

bonhomme and sly gent,

creep from each rafter crying relent relent!

Their game a known ploy

to these seductresses imbued,

yet perplexedly coy

and desirously shrewd.

Is the money well spend?

Shall the inebriation dent

the stalwart lock on each feline's foul tent?

To assume an open flap

surely deserves a bawdy slap,

so first draw out a map

to leave debonair demeanor intact:

A bromide oozes out of the chemical cauldron: a line hatched before, now a mere drop in the sleu; voracity confounded, reeking of linguistic ineptitude: would that I could slither over and abrasively question as to the necessity of the word 'like' which acts as effervescent glue in their vernacular, a word to disembowel their vocabulary, gashing and bashing my verbose companions:

Mademoiselle, may I inquire as to the privilege of your tutoring? Such erudition! Such scholarly tenacity do you possess to spout simile after like simile after like another simile … or am I a forlorn fool to comment upon your speech impediment?

And how the inloud guffaws erupt, I may scarcely contain the snarky smile splayed 'cross face! Another monsieur – another please, these goons prove splendid chiding fodder.

Mademoiselle, mademoiselle! Do I detect a delectable knowledge of Mandarin coursing through your synapses? Or perhaps Cantonese be your mother tongue? For the inflection in your voice could only be the like consequence of a dormant tonal language. No? Just the precipitate of valley girl infiltration … oh oh oh, sorry for the mistake.

Ben, Ben, Ben you've been a rather sexist pig, jibing only at the women-folk. … Oh but do languorously reprimand me! In time, in time...

Garçon...eh...pardon...monsieur...may I inquire as to the bloated pompousness of your cantor? Do you possess an air pump to fluff your gorilla mass into the balloon engorged before me? Appendages ready to burst into a testosterone supernovae, torso the art of a rubber knotting clown.

Bleh enough of this tomfoolery, adieu adieu adieu.

Slumber

Inner turmoil eases into an babbling urgency - frothing like a crab gurgled swaddling garment of bubbles which encompasses consciousness; each opus's pellucid glint hidden from sight, appearing for fleeting instants: each moment's realization of non-reality smudged by a globule's traipsing movement. Wariness? Ever present. Ever grasping for attention. Yet ever obscured into a nonentity. Ever clawing to escape from its dream imposed dungeon.

Mountainside parking spots. A gradient so steep, the parked cars caressing peripheral vision, creating a looming corridor up the hill, groan under gravity's strain; the incessant pull, pull, pull ebbs at their resolution. Onward towards beach. Onward to the dilapidated wreck. How does the decrepit house draw us near, we travelers blissfully unaware of the journey's true means of locomotion? The beach glistens ahead. Just an alley remains. And dogs

wwwwwwowowohurryhurryoooooowoooorunrunrunrunoowooowooooomoveyouimbeciles

woooooowoooffffhhhrhrhrhhrmmmrhmrhmaccckkkkghhwooooowoowofoof.

Sand cemetery. Wood beams chafed coarse by the swirling wisps of sand – little centimeter tall tornadoes twist round their torpid companions, endeavoring for each excruciatingly elongated ellipse to grind the planks further into their gritty graves. White paint flakes hang like jagged hangnails on the drowning fence, though no grubby teenager's gob shall tear the protrusions bare, instead, like a wave of hands limping 'round an elementary school's basketball floor, the wind's languorous lift coddles out the sole sense of movement in this barren scene. Vacant lot. Vacant beach. Vacant sea. And indeed specters we are, suspended in motion, susceptible to the dreamweaver's macabre undercurrent; and with one swift inward gulp, the looming sea-side mansion yanks gaze into Her deplorable wreck.

Sand permeates even here. Islands of objects. Bookcase. Vase. Diaphonous haze – so pristine, no, no, no, too pristine. The surrounding atmosphere beyond rarefied: not even alloted an environ of air, we too become islands, awaiting a frozen froufrou fate.

Loiter here, among the austere, and from the rear, you'll feel her leer.

Woman is this your house?

The moment's glimpse faded, escape thwarted, entranced now by preoccupation. Hammered windchime harp. Well go at it, reach for your ax, let each heave intoxicate perception further, unleash flurries of inaccessible notes – no matter the tones hide from ear, no matter the mallets move of extraneous volition, 'tis but a normal occurrence, 'tis but a trivial matter of incoherence, pour away existence into focus, pour without heed to the GREY PASSERBY she's nothing to note, nothing but AGE INCARNATE. Dizzy, hypnotize, enrapture, submit to her command. The witch's house gloom now stains the room, brewin', and stewin' the tincture of doom, no dust in this flew, nor midnight dew, start anew, ha! you bafoon, group baboon, estranged loon, cry a croon, fresco festoons,

ululate undulating utterance:

TARRY NO MORE

FRANTIC FANATIC ANTIC TIC

SHE INHABITS HERE

SHE INHABITS HERE

SHE INHABITS HERE

SHEEN RABBIT'S HARE

SHIN RABID HAIR

The sheen of rabbit's hair fuzzily covering her shins snakes all the way up to the top of her head, adorned with a veritable umbrella - sparkles and strands of every color shimmer under the glistening sun, distracting from the javelin long appendage of a cigarette holder directing us to be seated. “I can quit at any time you know, the chemistry depends entirely upon your hair, so if I wish to abstain, I'll just shave it all off,” wisps fall from their follicle holsters to land daintily on the ground. “Oh good heavens have you before spoken of the wonders of plant made wool? The little strands plucked from the ground,” instantly materializing as a yellow polka dot upon navy turtleneck-skirt embracing the lovely woman who scampers away into dreamland's obfuscation.