tryptch with alan peters trumpet. bob robertson sax not here but in some other place. 1. the homecoming. here in this sudden place the lack of everything but you and your companion poses the uneasy question of whether the man next to you is real. it is no matter, he is as real as you are and no more. he is yourself. you both are dreamers within dreams you are each others truth: in this empty voided place you give each other life, momentary belief, proof of existance. we take each others hands and the hills resolve themselves low-lying khaki swellings surrounding the land before, the land upon eaoh side. there is no point in turning round. wrapped deep inte our robes we walk in grave confusion through this broken breaking land. the ground totters on unsteady stones, no fierce blood streams through the river's arms, only sterile flowers, frailwebbed and seeming frozen, lurk in decaying wrinkles. the insects crawl upon the dust of many cities, unaware of thier intentions. we recognise our own. we have thought ourselves to have greater intentions than could be justified by immobility, we will be forever frustrated until we return to it. without choice of birth or death. with suicide no triumph of will but a mere gesture caused by all things that prompt the will to it. we turn and turn, carrying the future's food within our bodies. mere mobile restaurants for these who shall survive us. the weighted air is crosscut by harsh draughts all other sounds are numb. exept the nervous rattle, as frightened as a shadow, of the pebbles we dislodge from these shattered paving stones towards darkness we came. and found an islet trapped in a stream of malignant mists. thunder hit the hilltop with the sound of an immense dress lifting. the darkness is undefined day. the land is still awefully apparent and its sounds now hang like mutilated children in the space between the hills. here in this sudden plaoe he kneels and hands to me some dreadful thing, a dead bird by its feathers, but more heavy. slicked with luminous slime and plastecine-pulpy; in the warmth of my hand it revives, slithers downward, hastens towards the boiling stream 2. city of sand and dust. we eannot count the distance to this place by any common rule; only by the footdragging sadness and bewildered hopes that attend the dustblown road, the camel dung and the cleansing of that drear light upon the yellow diseased spires. the air unnerves, tbe city gropes its way out of the fevered air sand and dust. hours of confusion pass without a single moments understanding. the dust disturbs the profiles of the camels the caravaneers the huge dark gate the halfclosed blinded eyes set in the sandstone walls. small shouts arouse the broken trenches of the streets the embattled houses ironed roofs. dreamers awake in screaming sleep with in the shuttered rooms of phantom blue and foetus white. we move to join them. the grained sky ebbs low around the very hems of our sand gripped robes. 3 afternoon. the midst of life we are. like drowsy crows the black robed shapes huddle in tall entrances. the sun hangs so immediately overhead that it is of no interest the heat is everywhere no-one moves. only the slight ripple uf am itching sleeve or the ghost of a eurling finger reveals a trace of flesh; maybe life. semetimes a voice surprises a covered arch high with unpleasant laughter, screams as hollow as those of demons dying in the scorched stone bowels of the earth and sudden silence. we find an inn amidst the maze of courtyards. even here only eyes half opening discIose awareness of our presence our bones feel weak and brittle. the dust tugs our tired feet. but still the waiting eyes, like vultures, drive in a sweating trance through the sharp doorway into the mosaic yard the unthinkably cool within. 4. the merchants. we sit and watch the day slide into night. fat merchants in the olive grove talk of the possibilities of trade with one eye on the cards. we have not waited here to watch the palming of the sun, nor do we seek to learn the flimsy tricks that keep the shuffling eternal cards in motion. rather, with a freeness that is not come by easily we lay the profits of this day beside the pale death-tutored wine and bet most heavily upon the possibility of tomorrows mere existance. 5. dead fish rising. this sun is huge its swollen belly sags in to the sea. waiting a while half blinded by shadows i stir these sands with futile fingers tbe red ants crawl without belief or zeal towards thier similar destinations. you cradle a burst fig as though its problems were your own. nets out of dreams are cast about this shore. a dead fish with false eyes lies sluggishly upon the only halfcold sand. 6. morning. the arm of the sun wakes the dust in the courtyard while silent shapes of uncertain sex wander the arches huge dismal abyss and ponder on dreams in the shadows of day. we stand by the window and watch these sleepwalkers silently gather their thoughts and their fruit then squat by the doorways and mutter of violence to the stones dust and olives that lie by thier feet. thier eyes are dripping streamstones rolling in unheard convulsions of thier veiled forgotten faces, and we within this barred unshuttered room are drawn into their endless nightmare by the unending mutter like torn reeds scorched and splitting that moans instead of wind above this fine unsleeping dust that seems as grey as powdered bone. many have died, we know, and it has changed nothing niether the mutter, the people nor the place. we wait with sorrowing unease. the sun has risen imto a new morning. we sense many deaths many not quite lives in the midst of this apparent birth. 7. the stoning 0utside the wall we are surprised by the aImost silence the heavy breathing of the men who bend and throw the sky is solid brown, coloured by the urgent cursing, the death cries that are now expiring with him. though thier clothes are many coloured they all seem the same dull shade thier backs hunched with tbis labour thier bodies like taut tired springs he is stretched.out on the ground, not awkwardly; his face is dirtsmeared like a streetchild, and the bloody ribbons that lace his face are like tear tracks the more so for the slow triekle that leaves the squashed pulp of his eye. a child comes staggering and drops a lump of masonry full on this face. it embeds with a rippling crunch. it would appear that we're too late, said the priest. i could hadly deny it 8. citadel. here on this pitted tower the hours revolve more obviously in tbe shredded clouds that shift across this deadened land. flakes on the stomework are poised but never fall. the day also seems suspended, as though some important part of its machinery had been removed the sun droops wearily tewards the hollowness of the unebbing sea. birds scream hoarse and sudden. the sun be tween my damp thighs rises as the dancers in the archrimmed courtyard;thier full bodies unhidden by dark rip- pling robes, begin to sway love searehing, among the swollen fl- owers of evening softness. 9 the rose garden in the rose garden frail trees write ornate but unconcerning words up on the shattered sky. we hold hands until the warm rain falls; and then shrugging off each other, with the same certainty of return as a child with an old toy, we hold our hands out glowing with dark heat; the rain is streams rivers and seas upon our palms. thin mists complete the cycle. you lift the ragged corner of your loose blaok viel. this is no moment for surprise. we find the earth beside the heavy petals. you unfold and swell in bud; the cycles the turning and the laok of any possible conclusion. 10. children of sorrows. so we speak, and though your eyes are drenched with the warm sunset dew, there is still the longing for some softer place in every word. the high trees bend. i seek no answer here nor even would if it should be that all these trees should fall and drift most terribly downwind. we sit among the fleshless grasses. empty and full together we watch thin horses drag the carrion of this last day into the blazing night. 1. the homecoming. here in this sudden place the lack of everything but you and your companion poses the uneasy question of whether the man next to you is real. it is no matter, he is as real as you are and no more. he is yourself. you both are dreamers within dreams you are each others truth: in this empty voided place you give each other life, momentary belief, proof of existance. we take each others hands and the hills resolve themselves low-lying khaki swellings surrounding the land before, the land upon eaoh side. there is no point in turning round. wrapped deep inte our robes we walk in grave confusion through this broken breaking land. the ground totters on unsteady stones, no fierce blood streams through the river's arms, only sterile flowers, frailwebbed and seeming frozen,lurk in decaying wrinkles. the insects crawl upon the dust of many cities, unaware of thier intentions. we recognise our own. we have thought ourselves to have greater intentieas than could be justif1ed by immobi1ity, we will be forever frustrated until we return to it. without ohoioe of birth or death. with suicide no triumph of will but a mere gesture caused by all things that prompt the will to it. we turn and turn, carrying the futures food within our bodies. mere mobile restaurants for these who shall survive us. the weighted air is orosscut by harsh draughts all other sounds are numb. exept the neryous rattle, as frightened as a shadow, of the pebbles we dislodge from these shattered paving stones towards darkness we came. and found an islet trapped in a stream of malignant mists. thunder hit the hilltop with the sound of an immense dress lifting. the darkness is undefined day. the land is still awefully apparent and its sounds now hang like mutilated children in the space between the hills. here in this sudden plaoe he kneels and hands to me some dreadful thing, a dead bird by its feathers, but more heavy. slicked with luminous s1ime and plastecine-pulpy; in the warmth of my hand it revives, slithers downward, hastens towards the boiling stream 2. city of sand and dust. we eannot count the distance to this place by any common rule; only by the footdragging sadness and bewi1dered hopes that attend the dustblown road, the camel dung and the cleansing of that drear light upon the yellow diseased spires. the air unnerves tbe city gropes its way out of the fevered air sand and dust. hours of confusion pass without a single moments understanding. the dust disturbs the profiles of the camels the caravaneers the huge dark gate the halfclosed blinded eyes set in the sandstone walls. small shouts arouse the broken trenches of the streets the embattled houses ironed roofs. dreamers awake in screaming sleep with in the shuttered rooms of phantom blue and foetus wbite. we move to join them. the grained sky ebbs low around the very hems of our sand gripped robes. 3 afternoon. the midst of life we are. like drowsy crows the black robed shapes huddle in tall entrances. the sun hangs so immediately overhead that it is of no interest the heat is everywhere no-one moves. only the slight ripple uf am itching sleeve or the ghost of a curling finger reveals a trace of flesh; maybe life. semetimes a voice surprises a coverned arch high with unpleasant laughter, screams as hollow as those of demons dying in the scorched stone bowels of the earth and sudden silence. we find an inn amidst the maze of courtyards. even here only eyes half opening discIose awareness of our presence our bones feel weak and brittle. the dust tugs our tired feet. but still the waiting eyes, like vultures, drive in a sweating tranee through the sharp doorway into the m mosaic yard the unthinkably cool within. 4. the merchants. we sit and wateh the day slide into night. fat merchants in the olive grove talk of the possibilities of trade with one eye on the cards. we have not waited here to watch the palming of the sun, nor do we seek to learn the flimsy tricks that keep the shuffling eternal cards in motion. rather, with a freeness that is not come by easily we lay the profits of this day beside the pale death-tutored wine and bet most heavily upon the possibility of tomorrows mere existance. 5. dead fish rising. this sun is huge its swollen belly sags in to the sea. waiting a while half blinded by shadows i stir these sands with futile fingers tbe red ants crawl without belief or zeal towards thier similar destinations. you cradle a burst fig as though its problems were your own. nets out of dreams are cast about this shore. a dead fish with false eyes lies sluggishly upon the only halfcold sand. 6. morning. the arm of the sun wakes the dust in the courtyard while silent shapes of uncertain sex wannder the arches huge dismal abyss and ponder on dreams in the shadows of day. we stand by the window and watch these sleepwalkers silently gather their thoughts and their fruit them squat by the doorways and mutter of violence to the stones dust and olives that lie by thier feet. thier eyes are dripping streamstones rolling in unheard convulsions of thier veiled forgotten faces, and we within this barred unshuttered room are drawn inte their endless nightmare by the unendimg mutter like torn reeds scorched and splitting that moans instead of wind above this fine unsleeping dust that seems as grey as powdered bone. many have died, we know, and it has changed n.thing neither the mutter, the people nor the place. we wait with sorrwing unease. the sun has risen imto a new morning. we sense many deaths many not quite lives in the midst of this apparent birth. 7. the stoning 0utside the wall we are surprised by tke aImost silence the heavy breathing of the men who bend and throw the sky is solid brown, coloured by the urgent cursing, the death cries that are now expiring with him. though thier clothes are many coloured they all seem the same dull shade thier backs hunched with tbis labour thier bodies like taut tired springs he is stretched.out on the ground, not awkwardly; his face is dirtsmeared like a streetchild, and the bloody ribbons that lace his face are like tear tracks the more so for the s1ow triekle that leaves the squashed pulp of his eye. a child comes staggering and drops a lump of masonry full on this face. it embeds with a rippling crunch. it would appear that we're too late, said the priest. i could hadly deny it 8. citadel. here on this pitted tower the hours revolve more obviously in tbe shredded clouds that shift across this deadened land. flakes on the stomework are poised but never fall. the day also seems suspended, as though some important part of its machinery had been removed the sun droops wearily tewards the hollowness of the unebbing sea. birds scream hoarse and sudden. the sun be tween my damp thighs rises as the dancers in the archrimmed courtyard;thier full bodies unhidden by dark rip- pling robes, begin to sway love searching, among the swollen fl- owers of evening softness. 9 the rose garden in the rose garden frail trees write ornate but unconcerning words up on the shattered sky. we hold hands until the warm rain falls; and then shrugging off each other, with the same certainty of return as a child with an old toy, we hold our hands out glowing with dark heat; the rain is streams rivers and seas upon our palms. thin mists complete the cycle. you lift the ragged corner of your loose blaok viel. this is no moment for surprise. we find the earth beside the heavy petals. you unfold and swell in bud; the cycles the turning and the laok of any possible conclusion. 10. children of sorrows. so we speak, and though your eyes are drenched with the warm sunset dew, there is still the longing for some softer place in every word. the high trees bend. i seek no answer here nor even would if it should be that all these trees should fall and drift most terribly downwind. we sit among the fleshless grasses. empty and full together we watch thin horses drag the carrion of this last day into the blazing night.