Les Tres Riches Heures

8/14/2019 Les Tres Riches Heures

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Les Trs Riches Heures

Danny Malboeuf

In shuttered rooms, in whispers white

She sleeps by emerald candlelight

She dreams of fallen seraphim

In velvet, stained with ancient sin

A shadowland of shadow smiles

Where blood, like candy, fills the aisles

A copper tent we call the sky

We'll burn the ladder, close the eye

The girls will kiss, the stars will die...

- The Book of Keb

Tell me your first memory. I'm fascinatedby first memories. Mine is a checkerboard

kitchen floor, in an apartment... in a town

called Cherryville. Next came oceans, and

storybook monsters that were as real asJesus. Waking up, drowsy from eternity...

everything new and pure. To a three year

old's eyes, the sky is always a perfectturquoise, streaked with high crystal

clouds. So beautiful that you want to eat it.How I wished (then) that hot-dogs couldbe that color.

But the dirt under the skin of the world

will eventually infect the dream.

Still, we find our peace... albeit in pieces. Self-Portrait(detail)

The dream of love. An indescribable thing,and yet you can gauge its boundaries. A painting you can never see, framed by elusive

pleasures. Isolated, they are almost meaningless... the cold November air at sunset,

blotted orange by a dying sun. The alkaline sting of a 9-volt battery on your tongue.Holding hands under a denim jacket. The flash of blue-green light behind your eyes at the

point of pleasure. A twelve-string guitar. The scent of warm asphalt on a summer evening.

A whispered Goodnight and Good morning. Chopin. An airplane, humming like alover beneath you...

But best of all is waking up from a beautiful dream, and finding that it is real after all.

That's when, even if you believe in no deity, you want to thank someone higher than


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yourself who mustbe responsible for this. Beatific God, who has made me smile, in spiteof the dirt beneath the world's skin. Finding yourself in someone's eyes is the ultimate

discovery. Ah, Columbus... you needn't have travelled so far.

A pivotal moment in my childhood: seeing a

blind guitar player outside of Woolworth's one

day. I remember his eyes were pupil-less andblood red. He sang hymns in a ragged voice,

and was oblivious to everything around him. I

was terrified, and became nauseous. Thebeauty/frailty/repugnance of humanity has

always been a source of fascination and

repulsion to me.

The fragility of beauty. The threshold we cross

every day, waking from a transitory death and

plodding towards a finality that we usuallyavoid contemplating.

Self-Portrait with Albatross

There's nothing more cathartic than putting together a model car. I'll wager that

assembling a vintage Aurora Wolfman is one of the most peace-inducing pursuits on the

planet. As a semi-serious collector of the aforementioned items (a serious collector being

an individual who has never known womankind in the biblical sense, and passionatelydebates the superiority of the Ghost Rider over the Silver Surfer) I can speak with some

degree of authority.

The first time I stumbled upon this revelation ... well, I must have been about twelve. It

was a cold and rainy Saturday, a grey November day with sleet-like icy needles

scratching at the windows. The kind of comforting cold that loves cake doughnutswarmed in a toaster-oven, and a cup of hot chocolate misting up your eyes. This is what

is known as model-putting-together weather, and I fail to understand why the TV

meteorologists never announce its arrival as such. Anyway, I had recently purchased a

Tom Daniels hot rod called the Groovy Grader, which was an insanely souped-up roadgrader with mag wheels. We have our headache-inducing glue, our enamel paint that

never applies smoothly, and our unfortunate brushes that we forgot to clean last time

around...


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Then, as we are drawn into our work, a strange thing begins to happen. Everything

around begins to fade away. All that seems to exist now are these pieces of plastic, and

seeing that they fit perfectly. Everything else is forgotten. Nothing is, except this. It's astate I've since learned to replicate as I paint. A total absorption in the task at hand. Not

that it's always possible... but when it is, there is no better feeling. To be completely lostin what you are doing, so that even you cease to exist. Blissful, indeed. Existence cansometimes be an irritation.

Anyway, a cold rainy Saturday is and always will be a Groovy Grader day in my

lexicon of days. And here's a hot chocolate toast to the bliss of temporary nothingness.

My first near-death experience occurred on the Ross 10-speed racing bike. Having seen

the surely divine Debbie Addison pass by in the family stationwagon with her mother, I

was pedaling desperately to catch up with them. My intention was to whiz by, the

epitome of coolness, as they sat idling at the traffic light. However, I managed instead todrop the tennis racquet I was carrying into the spokes of the front wheel. Apart from the

amazing sound it made (something akin to dropping a harp and a Caribbean metal drum

into a wood chipper), it flipped me over the handlebars and onto the unforgiving sidewalkof East Broad Street. For a second I could swear I saw a being of light... but it was just an

old guy in white pants asking me if I were okay.

The first TV I remember was a big

black cube, sitting on a tabledesigned to hold its bulk.

Televisions weighed several tonsback then, and within minutes ofbeing turned on got hot enough to

warm a TV dinner. They emitted a

strong electric smell, and their

backs glowed orange from averitable city of tubes inside. More

often than not I was squeezed back

behind it, looking through the airslits into its warm light. It all

seemed magic, contrasting with the

blue-grey light from the front thestatic, rabbit-ears with aluminum

foil, and darkened room. Transmission

The Christmas I grew up with is a strange creation of late twentieth century culture. The

sacred and profane are joined together, opposing yet complementing one another. Likered and green. Christmas was and is (for me) a wonderful mixture of symbols. Manger


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and sleigh, candles and multi-colored lights. The Night Before Christmas, and the secondchapter of St. Luke. The Angels appearing to the shepherds always struck a note of awe

and holy dread in my young soul, as did the time one Christmas Eve that my not very

sober father climbed onto the roof to ring a bell down the chimney... a portent of Santa'sarrival. It was for me a sensation of delicious fear and expectation. It's something that I

retain to this day. And as much as I longed for the orgiastic frenzy of present-opening inthe morning to come, I learned to relish the exquisite moments of poetry that so often arecome and gone before anyone of us takes notice. May we all take notice.

Checking out a Josie & the Pussycats

website (for the cartoon, not the film)I was glancing over the collectibles

page and came across what I initially

thought was a nativity set. For a brief

second I experienced the ephiphanicrush of exotic beauty that I get when

the unexpected crash together inside

the musty supercollider between myears. Alas, I had mis-read vanity set.

All is vanity. Regina Coele Latere (detail)

I remember an ancient early autumn

evening. Cool drizzle caresses theexhaust of a hundred cars. Theparking lot gleams as if it were glass.

Two girls kiss on a dare. Warm

bubblegum breath on my cheek, on

my neck. Hands find my pockets.Turning Japanese on a radio

somewhere, and the Eckerd's Drugs

sign seems to flash in time with thebeat, and I wish that time would stop.

There's a bright light behind the

clouds. I know it's the moon, but Iwonder if it's Jesus... A Secret Song for Sara

An old love, with its ecstasies and agonies, does not die. But its essence will condense

into a bittersweet candy, far back on one of the dusty shelves of your soul. New


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affections, new obsessions will supersede it, but they will never obscure its distantflavour, or its longings.

Once your heart is touched in that peculiar way, it never quite heals. The pain can oftenbe pleasurable, but it is always pain. Unrequited. If it is requited, it isn't what you

expected, and probably not what you wanted. But this disappointment is not the answer.Disappointment is the sister of complacency.

Reality and the ideal can't seem to exist in the same time and space. The gears turn, but

never mesh. That's the dilemma of attempting to live in both worlds. In fact, they are

sworn enemies.

Music whispers of a sweet reality that only exists in the mind of the hearer. To put it

politely, it embroiders on what most consider to be the truth. In songs, I heard the longingthat I felt yet didn't understand. And the most important thing I've learned is that I don't

want to understand it. I can't be as cynical as Tolstoy, who in The Kreutzer Sonata

insinuated that music was a beautiful lie, but then I doubt that he could be either. Eventhough I now know the actuality and the possibilities of certain life situations, I also

know that I cannot live inside the rancid corpse of what many consider reality. With

music, with painting, take what this world offers as reality and do your best to bend and

twist it into a beautiful shape. If it breaks, it cannot be considered a life wasted. Go west,young man... in the sunset lies your heart.

I hear you singing through the wire, I can hear you in the wine...

*Transmission ended*

I tend to submerge allunpleasantness beneath the miles

of permafrost that I've allowed to

accumulate over the years (self-preservation, ya know). There shall

be no clubbing of baby seals in my

arctic preserve. I ask questions, but

I pray that the answers never come.

Bless me with mystery, and

shroud me with shadows...

Originally I was going to weave a

cautionary tale along the lines ofbe careful in whom or what you

invest your time, and yourself...The Pretty Baa Lambs


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but that just sounds far too negative, and I hate being negative. This pitiful world islacquered over with sadness, broken from nearly the beginning. The truth is that you

cannot rely on anyone. Even those who have the best intentions. Even yourself.

So, a misplaced trust is a stone I've stumbled over more than once in my lifetime. Those

who you have come to trust as a friend, even a best friend... why do they suddenlyappear with a knife behind their smile? It's all the more distressing when you know thatyou've done nothing to deserve it. Who knows? Sometimes all you can do is stand in

stark amazement. The world becomes a little less green, a little more grey.

Bitterness is not an option. One can only hope to become wiser. The positive aspect? Youbecome all the more thankful and attentive to the one who truly does love you. Now,

everyone, smile your defiant smile into the grey, unfeeling void... and surely something

will change.

Tonight is the first night of autumn.Not technically, perhaps, but I

usually gauge it by whether I must

close my window during the course

of the evening. My computer beingat the window, my mouse hand

quickly becomes cold. But not

unpleasantly so. All the better tosee the spirits rising from my hot

cup of tea.

So, the crickets are muted tonight.

The writing spider outside mywindow is suddenly gone. And

Scorpius gently slides down A Kiss on Sled Hill

behind the trees in the west...Antares and Shaula glitter above the housetops. Fomalhaut rises, and makes its silent arc

across the southern sky. Autumn is here.

Now for the days of ice-blue skies and winds twisting with red and yellow leaves. Coldstrip malls and warm cars with the radio playing. The smell of wood-smoke, and the

distant sound of children playing. A girl's fuzzy sweater, that smells inexplicably and

wonderfully sweet... traces of her hair, her perfume, and her laughter.

The crickets won't be singing much longer... but there is a family of owls that lives

several trees down from me. There's something very old and comforting about theircalling to one another through the night. Ungainly bird, but most lovely of all birds.

Singing, as the song of the cricket dies away, and the stars of summer sleep behind the

earth. The heavenly season, blue and blazing, has come again.


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On Labor Day the county fair

comes to town. Granted, it's asad shadow of its former glory.

Gone are the days of hyper-dangerous rides, deformed farmanimals, and girlie shows. No

more heavily made-up ladies

swaying tiredly to New Order

or Human League... the veryweight of their make-up

making them weary. No two-

headed baby in a jar, chained toa post like some insane tether

ball. No unfortunate calf with

six legs... just pies, and a Ferriswheel.

But I recall the more

dangerously poetic times.Insane crowds, a thousand

songs playing at once. The

creak and rumble of the rides,and enough flashing lights to

induce a city of seizures.Seeing an old girlfriend for the last time in front of the Arctic Flyer. Only her eyes, over

someone's shoulder. Walking home in the rain with friends, and feeling both happy and

sad.

Earlier still, and a boy of eight was enchanted by a gypsy girl of twelve, who took his

quarters. No matter which duck he chose, it was never the winning one. But that was fine.Her eyes were dark lights, and cut deeply into his heart. She was there every year.

Then, when he was thirteen, it was all unexplainably and suddenly changed. The gypsy

girl was gone. The sad animals were hidden away, the dancing girls danced elsewhere.

But I like to think that somewhere, such a county fair still exists. A microcosm of a mad

world, translated into neon lights and candy apples. Unhealthy food, unwholesomeattractions... all brightly lit, and all nearly within your grasp. Such things can and do

inspire the impressionable and wide-eyed proselyte.

I have a few relics from those days. A clown's head, whose body has long since

disappeared. A golden cross, now brown with age. And a few plastic ducks, whose

numbers are painted on the bottom with red nail polish. I like to imagine that it was hers.


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The same trees surround that field, the same gravel lines the midway, the same eyes lookback on those days... forever gone.

The Silver Apples of the Moon

Do you remember what I never forget? Meeting at dusk on the fairground. The sky a

deepening blue, the songs blaring from the Arctic Flyer. How natural it all seemed, right

from the beginning. Do you remember the sudden cooling of the air as the sundisappeared? That evening breeze that carried with it a thousand scents, from a myriad ofperfumes and foods. From green and yellow fluorescent lights... sawdust and redwood

benches... Pepsi spilled on summer shirts. Dying colognes. My friend Robbie met Selene,

and they ventured off into the night. I met you.

Do you remember my grandparent's basement? The cool stone floor; stacks of

newspapers, and the smell of gasoline. The radio that played Pink Floyd on Sundayafternoons. Listening for approaching footsteps, and yet not hearing them.

Do you remember the week before Christmas? You climbed into my light-lined window,

and burned your stomach slightly on a green bulb. Do you remember the CD you broughtwith you?A Gregorian Christmas. We half-listened as we wholly discovered what really

and truly was. And later, we huddled together under a patchwork quilt, staring wistfully

at the streetlights through the window, as that timeless music spoke to us of a timelesstime.

Do you remember talking on the phone, under the covers? It was never boring; there wasalways more to say than could have been said. Every day, every night.


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Do you remember when your

family moved away, and took you

with them? You couldn't face me,to tell me. But I'll tell you a secret...

I couldn't face you to hear it. So,one day a day unfolded, and youwere not at its center. It seemed an

impossible thing to have happened.

An amazingly hurtful thing, like an

object that is unbearably hot, butwill not allow you to release it.

You left a vapor trail across the

sky... and then you were gone, andthe vapor dissipated... and there

was nothing. Nothing but a

cathedral ofmemories. I am not amonk in this cathedral, but do visit

it tenderly on the darkest nights to La Cathedrale de Strasbourg

blow the cobwebs from the reliquary.

I have a new bishopric now.

Ten scents that should be mass-marketed

1. A redwood bench that has absorbed the noonday sun.

2. A mixture of various fast foods and sawdust (usually found at fairgrounds).

3. New vinyl albums and CDs.

4. Difficult to describe... but the taste/scent of a persimmon on a chilly evening with aslight hint of school-bus exhaust.

5. A girl who has just mown the grass and is wearing sunblock (not with coconut oil,

however).

6. A Firestone store. I remember from childhood huge towers of new tires and shinymetal toy robots...

7. Warm fluorescent lights in the rain (especially those on a Ferris wheel).

8. A denim jacket worn by a girl who has excellent taste in cologne, shampoo, and

bubblegum.


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9. My grandmother's Eastern Star bible, with its multi-colored ribbon bookmarks.

10. Dead leaves.

The day has gone down magnificently. The sun has drifted behind the poplar trees,framing each leaf in orange and coloring the sky a brighter blue than midday, with softtendrils of pink and mauve encroaching around the edges. Nature seems to have paused.

The birds meditate in their nests, and even the passing cars have a hush of reverence upon

them. It indeed seems almost a holy moment. Our star goes to warm the oceans ofmorning behind the world, as her children gently wink in an ever-darkening sea of

twilight. The cicadas are not so shrill now. Perhaps the brightening summer stars have

drawn them into a state of contemplation. That gentle light that reaches us now, likewaves from a distant shore, is but a ghost of what it once was. Vega and Deneb, blue-

white diamonds hanging far above, cast their shadows too dim for our eyes, but the

waking owl will follow them in her ever-widening circle of flight. The air is heavy, yet

not oppressive, rich with the verdant jewels of summer lawns and sprinklers that whispera sweet monotony. From the house, the music of Mendelssohn plays... the organ sonatas,

tracing patterns in the evening of an almost Bachian grace. The music lends an overture

of sacred peace to the moment, and all is overlaid with a feeling of the presence of God.One can glimpse His true nature now, a silent majesty that awakens an intimate voice in

the depths of the heart of creation. One can recognize its echo in the distant sound of

children playing, in the hum of the streetlight as it flickers to life, in the cricket as it singsfrom its home in the deep grass. This oratorio of nature and man is too beautiful to last

more than a few divine moments. Be still and take it in, the poetry that is now at hand, for

all too soon the sky trembles into darkness, and night will come to draw her dark shroud

across our eyes.

It's still warm where you were sitting. A piece of tangerine skin curls around a cup ofwarm tea. Lights on the Christmas tree blink a rhythm that's vaguely familiar to you, and

to me. Changing constellations on a sawdust sea. The milky blackness of your long hair

silhouetted against the light of a sad red candle. Burning, dying away.

The people who are dead ... or maybe you just haven't seen them in a long, long time.That's better. More palatable. A song you hear in the store that brings back a flood of

melancholy memories. Suddenly, you really don't want to be there or anywhere. You

just don't want to be. Well, you may as well exist with me.

The ever-present music was a father to you. It told you things that you had always known,

but never really thought of before. It lent an elegance to every sweet smile. It turned

cardboard to gold.... so when the cardboard finally crumbled, you saw only gold dust.Music, the beautiful lie. It taught you to hate silence above all, and so you do. Still, small

voices wait in the folds of silence. Jealous gods give you dreams of empty cities, where

you are fated to walk and find nothing...


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So, sit for a while. The saddest secret is yet to come. Its herald is written on the wall. Notby the fingers of God, but by the soft shadows of sunlight and leaves flickering there.

Why is it so sad, that dying light? It has always been so... to you. Don't look away. It's

time to look now, and let those wordless shadows take you into their depths. A soft, slowspiral. The clock's hands wave us a sad farewell.

We won't leave this year with glasses full, but with empty tears. Not with the sound ofmerriment, but with the gentle spleck of a parting kiss in the grey waves of morning.

There is pain in the blissful core of even the prettiest star. But still, we are...

And it's still warm where you were sitting.

The words of Danny Malboeuf, edited from his journal entries by Lloyd D. Graham. Dannys drawings are pencil on

paper and his paintings are acrylic on canvas; his art can be seen athttp://kolaboy.deviantart.com/gallery/ and

http://beinart.org/artists/danny-malboeuf/?GID=746 .
http://kolaboy.deviantart.com/gallery/http://beinart.org/artists/danny-malboeuf/?GID=746http://beinart.org/artists/danny-malboeuf/?GID=746http://kolaboy.deviantart.com/gallery/

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Les Tres Riches Heures