Spoken Word/Poetry – (At the Bottom of) Abandoned Wells

This weekend was punctuated by me publishing my most recent sound experiment/recording on Soundcloud.

You can listen to it by pressing the play button on the embedded SC player
http://soundcloud.com/terjedb/at-the-bottom-of-abandoned

At the bottom of abandoned wells
(Terje D. Bergersen alias TerjeDB 2012)

“It still falls into death.
It still falls into sickness.
It still falls into a forgetting.
It still falls into suffering.
It still falls into sorrow.
It remains as hollow and empty.
It still falls into unconsciousness.

An eternal sun watches over it.
Angels sing their Hallelujah.
Daughters and sons beget daughters and sons.
The wheel turns.
Cities prosper, empires grow.

A person that lends out, receives bountiful dividends
A person has faith, he seeks the day,
he stands in light.
Feet are sturdied, blind men see, mute mouths open
and speak.

It still falls into the abyss.
It is still encircled by the serpent of fate.
The child gets a poison scorpion instead of succour.
The laws are mocked.
The yoke breaks the back of the ass.

A man grows into old age, having acquired learning and skill.
A young man attains worth, marries, and sires a son.
Medicines and cures abound.
Dignity, Justice, Equality is elevated as virtues.

Fires to embers, embers to ashes.
Do not draw a god upon the gates of the city,
draw it on the bottom of the emptied wells.”

 

And I really do have to apologize for the gritty voice, I just wanted to put it on tape before I regretted anything. I cannot explain the impulse here, but the two compositions – music/sound and poem, fit together enough for me to hear what was there. It is a response to recent events and tendencies. “Mute Mouths Open and Speak.” I wish you well and have no quarrel with you, but if we expect to sancify anything by intent,by priority and by
consciousness we cannot start with the already sacrosanct,elevated and obvious.
While the bottom of abandoned wells are sinister, and the graffitti there most definitely do not bode as well as the scripture cited on the walls of cathedrals, or the gates of grand cities. The noise in the background is Pan drum scrapes and rolls.

 

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