Over at Tabb's=3 poems unpub.(c) 2002, 2003, 2004 (+"Bertie" +"Station") |
OVER AT TABB'S Copyright © Lisa Page Weil, unpublished works, "Through Sky" © 2002, "Talli" ©2003, "Lieder" ©2004, All rights reserved. Contents: Through Sky Talli Lieder THROUGH SKY Friend, the breeze, lifting Touch from the air, Holding the constant sky, Guided by uneven earth, Winds a blue corridor Through branching trees. TALLI It's that Talli was out of the country After the years we met. He'd disappear And reappear. It's amazing that we kept Resuming our past after all of those off And on separations. It's also amazing That we remembered all of the old times Before then. Once we weren't children, we had a long Break before we saw each other, when we Were involved with new and other things. That's what I knew before my teens. I know we talked about plays and writing, The way that we and our other friends Did, but we didn't have as much time Together. Talli's quieter, until he gets Older. He was more communicative as A kid, and then less, and when he was in His teens, he had opinions about things And a life of his own. Poor Talli--we commiserate with each other As inseperable companions: and our adult Lives, and career roles; it's too moralistic. I think we both were isolated and found Each other. I think I decided Talli was Separate, and that I wasn't willing to Consider or reconsider that part of my Life. It's not from who you are; it's from Looking at the ceiling to know where you Are, and then thinking, or watching the Person who has the most input, an example; And having to trade your part in it and Decide what it would amount to, either as A person having to participate, to Someone else, or as one who has the same Parameters instead of the ones you have Otherwise. Not that you don't carry him Yourself; it's that you never realize it After you leave, or take it back when you Go home. He couldn't imagine becoming somebody Else, as an idealist going somewhere In life. We didn't think about the here And away side of life, because it's Easier to be two people together than One alone. We're together first, I guess; We've mostly been together about Everything. LIEDER What about him? You're more compatible? Yeah, we didn't have a crisis of Incompatibility and compromise. He was All prepared for me to leave him and to Leave the world as we knew it, when he was Around twenty. He thought everyone would Be better; and he'd be different. We had The same relationship we'd always had. He'd see me in my room, and I'd go around With him to see things. We spent a lot of Time with each other. We thought we'd be Someone out there one day, and overnight, He was staying up late to survive it all. He was happy when everyone was separate And far away for awhile. We didn't talk About getting married then. I hardly ever ran into him around campus, But I sometimes would see him. I had a Year left, when I got back, and I was Worried about my long-term relationship Ending, and all of the security that I Would lose then. After my teens, I thought I'd rather have that than Return to its opposite. Mostly, I thought About what I'd be doing over the next few Years, and about what my life would Be like. About artistic respect as well? We both Were in the same field. Aspiring artists Are always planning what they're going To do in five years and are also involved With their direction at the time. He Listens to you. You listen to him. You Even work together. You and he spend Your evenings talking about practice, And your days philosophizing about meaning. II. After seventy-six, and after the summer on The beach, after all of those letters back To no one, no one who would answer them, Anyway; I had to think about what kind of A place it would be without him; whether There'd always be a person missing. We'll Look back on the old upholstery with the Crocheted new blue covers with tasseled Fringe on the bottoms and wonder who's in His chair, watching the curtains and the Trees. It should be like that. Sitting around At home talking about potential and finding Your expectations realized with the hopes And dreams of what it takes. It's the day To day, year by year side to the exchange. We've spent hours working together, hours And years. He's always thinking about What he's working on: if it's purely a Technical exercise, or if he's destroying His time, on the inside. I was going to be a singer before then. It takes years to get to the other end, So you can develop from there. We spend Time together on music. He contributes Where he is, and he could lose that, Instead. After the orchestral pieces. See he real--, He's not only a metaphor for time. He was always able to step in and change Circumstance as it came up; which isn't Within the still life subjects as they're Developed. We are closer in age. You'd have to say, That originally I had no career and he Was just starting. Then I started out And lived with his career. How would I characterize him? Focused, Convivial, single-minded, purposeful, Nervously-driven, personable; younger Was more insecure than older. He Doesn't have that many deep and lasting Inner conflicts. Visionary? He had his own clear ideas Going in: he was going in a new Direction and going to introduce Stylistic combinations that hadn't been Included. He was going to run with his virtuosity. He had an idea of where he'd be when he Was in his twenties. I don't know if he Had lapses and leaps into the visionary In conceptual direction, because he is Driven, nervous, pressured, an ideologue. Including ideas from lives elucidated for Other people. He's influenced any, but he's got decades Left. You'd be influenced to keep turning Them out year after year. Mostly, We get together over the years and Review and synopsize and go off again. He's an original artist; new style and Message, new techniques. He and I have The same channels as we did or would. We both were taught. As a matter of in passing, though, he Thought he'd be new and different. His Experience is with what he does, over The hours. III. When we get home, we'll go over to Tabe's. You don't ever go over in time. What about his philosophical love of Nature and the outdoors? The wintery Mountain terrain and wooded streams that I never saw. When I went to see who was Going to take lessons, there was my name. I knew that I couldn't have hoped for more, And I signed up for music theory and voice. Tabe's coming back. He almost missed it. A year's work. Maybe we'll buy it In new music; it's densely charged. Southern Tabe and northern Tabe. Tabe and two years each? We bought the letterhead for him. He went out. He'll be back later. They took the song and ran with it; Every sixteen-year old drove it during Summer vacation. IV. After I became a singer one day, Which was when I was sixteen, we spent More time with each other again. I think he got used to the idea, That that's where I'd be. I was five When I decided. After I was going to be a singer; I sang with the radio after school. I don't think my friends thought anything Of it. By then, he didn't think about it. When he lived next to me, I don't know Whether he could hear all the noise from My side facing the road; I think he was Far away from it. I went over with my Lyric sheets looking for someone. Maybe I was looking for someone because I had A recital in May. Before I started, I'd had my recital in Voice, three Lieder, and after the next Year, I learned the aria and the English Art song. I had two languages to learn To finish my requirements. I was happy to be A Lieder singer. I was sitting in my armchair listening to The radio in the afternoons and evenings; The next thing I remember, I was away In high school and college; when I came Back, I remembered that radio programming Hadn't taken me for as much. Looking back On those five years, I couldn't think of The insistence of the endless sets of changes Of direction and outlook. When I worked as a florist, I had a table And refrigerators of cut flowers behind me And bouquets in front of me. When people came in for displays or Arrangements, I took their contracts. We have red and canary cover pages and White forms for the studio. V. Thinking people are thinking along first People. With liking and compatibility, You don't think someone else could become Your person one day. He didn't reconsider you and him; He reconsidered him. Everyone's sincere Before and after, and you came up with Each other. By then, you socialize with the writers And talkers, and Tabe doesn't say anything. He's in the background. Summer listening. He had to get his Writing together for hours there. Summer radio. In his mind, he's in a Book. You were there. He's at his own Table with other people. You might not Have gone in your own direction without Your involvement with him. You spent Time with him that gave you confidence Later. What would my advice be? To have a clear Picture of where you intend to end up. To bring something to the form. To Preserve your outlook separately from Your ideology, when it comes to what Ideas you have that someone else may or May not have. I've come to understand that, it's not Where I ended up; it's a tribute to Meeting people's expectations first. Sometime, between voice and instrumental Music, during a winter after debating the Meaning of a song instead of a literary Work, on a cold and drafty day with the White sun shining into a room, at the end Of the nineties, I sang poolside under a Palm frond roofed hut for all of the Beach guests, which didn't seem to make Them look up, although I'd done an Entire beach set New Year's Day. We weren't neighbors during those years, We became neighbors less than a decade After the song. Nine years after then, And we were neighbors for another fourteen Or fifteen years. It's omitted mostly, That unlike his friends, I didn't take Troubles to heart and take them home With me. I can't decide what he thought. He was introspective about where the time Left him. About the song? That it was his song. It's always been his song, so he must Have been thinking about why he didn't Want to sing it anymore. I think he Changed the story, because we both Were on it. What about the other singer? He could perform it and sing it alone. When he couldn't find that side to him, He wrote about half of it. So they thought it was because of me? I don't know if he thought about it. Maybe he ever thought of it. He had a Good performance also. I don't think it Was about me. The song had two singers Going out, once he was off with his Friends. What you don't know about him, Is that he would have loved to sing the Original on his own. Yeah, he would have liked to sing it on His own, some. At the time, I couldn't Even sing it in the car. The next Summer, I sang with the car radio instead. He didn't, as a younger person than now, Know what he thought, exactly; his outlook On it changed. Our friends didn't know, That, outlook or no outlook, we already Had a different relationship; one not Related to the dilemma of who sings and What's best for the song: How would it Sound, what would it say, how would It seem? Maybe he was thinking of those things, But, do you know why? Because all the Music changed after the bicentennial; Everyone said: it's too much the same Music. Which they had conflicts about, But they went with the times. His parts Were changing, and his relationship was Changing as a result of that. He might Have partly blamed me for that. If his Songs changed, what was he going to do With his time? And he didn't know what He thought of the music; It's not what He thought he'd be doing when he got Together with his friends. Maybe he felt alienated from me, the song, And his motivations in music. His friends Didn't empathize with him and weren't Involved with him, or with what he was Going to do in the near future, or with What he thought of music and what the People he was close to thought about Music. When everyone was departing, the Same inertia was rolling in every way Within a short time. What if he had no connection to the new Material and to what he was doing, both? Song feelings reinforced that. We had Reservations about dividing the song out To begin with. Who was on it? He was Nice, by keeping me on, too, sometimes. As a singer, I don't know what I had to Do with creating that. Over the years, For one thing; everyone hears their own Version, and for another, I had a separate Relationship with him. That's exactly What he said to me. He has the story; he'd already gone back After practice, and you were still out. He was sitting down, and you were finishing The second voiceover for his song. As it Got later, you and he got quieter. You had said, that, as a singer, you Started to accept his version after Driving up a highway ramp in your car and Having the song on and discussing what the Performance should be and what a great song It was. Even after a year of being on it, Singing along. After driving with him, and thinking that It turned out better in the end after Both of us; I can't figure out why he Wasn't happy to have it all back to Himself, and why he wasn't going to Travel with it and come back to tell me How it went. He was more determined and Expressive, and he gradually lost that. As he said, the song is two related Performances and sets of statements, At that point, as the same statement, Without it being diverse in the verses. In its implications: everyone wanted To hear it. I liked the original. I didn't Understand it. How I hear it is, That it's like fiction, in one respect: It's the conviction of the form. If the Song seems like a form of autobiographical Expression, which is like writing, then People will accept it right away. When it fails as fiction, is it Implied expression? All of the phrases Change, if it's in phrases. I think that he came to terms with where It was leaving him; and he decided that Was it. He's been adamant about his Part in it at the time. He was thinking About me, too. Then he had afterwards. Whoever changed his career, and I Thought he had; I'd thought he would Earlier. He made sure to include me. He knew that I was on the song; and he Had to wait for the right town, time, And place to leave. It was everybody And him. It made him feel better. And then, no one said anything to me About it the next year. Everyone had Become so unaware of him, after that Year earlier, when he'd been so nice And was there. We were discussing the unattainable Sunset and how it was pursued, yesterday. If you offer someone a better life one Day, and the person departs from their Worse one for it; then what do they Depart from? What is a part of the Agreement? Your life could improve. Every year with him, could get better One day. |
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