The Young Equestrians, AV Aerie, Chicago, 8/15/08

"Harmonica Song"

An endless spine, lubricated to facilitate loose-tongued, southwestern stagger. Ambling up and down along the slightly bumpy path of beer-drugged, one-street-towned dinosaur vertebra, we drag our lips and tongues behind us as we grope, groggy, along these bones. Putting our breath before our bodies, we cloud and hug the sideways, smoothed-out bumps of a spine that fails to stop.

Spine reaches out before our half-hungry eyes. We push our breath, now, along its path. After our breath clouds around the newest few humps but before our dragging tongues catch up, half-divine sun-moisture-nourishment coaxes a bloom from this old, bone-dry bone: sparkling, anticipatory-cathartic, bits and pieces of a playground begin to rise like fast-forwarded flowers across the narrow spine-expanse in front of us. The top bar of a swing set, then the vertical chains, then the swing seats, the magnificent set now trembles before us as we gather up our lagging tongues and lips. Looking on, our hearts pang, our eyes water fruitfully. Now the top handles of a slide appear, the mere suggestion of a slide form lubricating our tired hearts and eyes. Curve-slip-down-around-and-out, here too now stands the entire slide. Finally, as dust kicks up to form a gently cyclonic cloud of shimmering particles, we know already what comes to rise-- oh dear lord we mutter-- ohh-- a merry-go-round glides into existence, whipping our hair back as it swings into sweet focus.

We look back at all the miles we've traveled, lifetimes of humping chair-backed links. We look back and think how hard it's been, simply to drag sensation into being, into the bone-dry, dead-static desert of someone's present.

We look forward, imagining what it will be now to drag that dry present into motion; into action; into play.