You Spoke from Midnight

From whiskey river:

Moonrise

And who has seen the moon, who has not seen
Her rise from out the chamber of the deep,
Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber
Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw
Confession of delight upon the wave,
Littering the waves with her own superscription
Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes towards us
Spread out and known at last, and we are sure
That beauty is a thing beyond the grave,
That perfect, bright experience never falls
To nothingness, and time will dim the moon
Sooner than our full consummation here
In this odd life will tarnish or pass away.

(D. H. Lawrence [source])

…and, from whiskey river‘s archives (the commonplace book):

Our existence is finite. The self that we have created through so many years of effort and suffering will die. And sustained though we may be by the idea, the hope, the certainty that some portion of us will eternally endure, we also must acknowledge that this “I” who breathes and loves and works and knows itself will be forever and ever and ever… obliterated.

So, whether or not we live with images of continuity — of immortality — we also will have to live with a sense of transience, aware that no matter how passionately we love whatever we love, we don’t have the power to make either it, or us, stay.

(Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses [source])

Not from whiskey river:

At latitudes greater than 72° N (i.e., 5° or more north of the Arctic Circle) there is a period in each month during which the moon never sets, remaining above the horizon for more than 24 hours; this is the moon’s equivalent of the sun’s midnight-sun period. During this period the moon goes round and round in the sky for days on end, progressing through several phases without disappearing. Likewise, there is a period in each month during which the moon never rises, remaining below the horizon for more than 24 hours; this is the moon’s equivalent of the “endless night” of arctic winter. These continuous “moon-stays-up” and “moon-stays-down” periods alternate with periods during which the moon rises and sets daily, just as it does in temperate latitudes. The moon-stays-up and moon-stays-down periods last longer the farther north you go until, at the pole itself, each lasts for half a month.

(E. C. Pielou, A Naturalist’s Guide to the Arctic [source])

…and:

Nocturnal

It’s midnight now and sounds like midnight then,
The words like distant stars that faintly grace
The all-pervading dark of space,
But not meant for the world of men.
It’s not what we forget
But what was never known we most regret
Discovery of. Checking one last cassette
Among my old unlabelled discards, few
Of which reward the playing, I find you.

Some years after her death, but years ago,
Hearing Gwen’s voice recite “Suburban Sonnet,”
At first we could not focus on it,
So jolted that the radio
Should casually exhume
From our shared memory the woman whom
We knew and make her present in the room,
As though in flesh, surprised to find that she
Had earned this further immortality.

Who ever thought they would not hear the dead?
Who ever thought that they could quarantine
Those who are not, who once had been?
At that old station on North Head
Inmates still tread the boards,
Or something does; equipment there records
The voices in the dormitories and wards,
Although it’s years abandoned. Undeleted,
What happened is embedded and repeated,

Or so they say. And that would not faze you
Who always claimed events could not escape
Their scenes, recorded as on tape
In matter and played back anew
To anyone attuned
To that stored energy, that psychic wound.
You said you heard the presence which oppugned
Your trespass on its lasting sole occasion
In your lost house. I scarcely need persuasion,

So simple is this case. Here in the dark
I listen, tensing in distress, to each
Uncertain fragment of your speech,
Each desolate, half-drunk remark
You uttered unaware
That this cassette was running and would share
Far in the useless future your despair
With one who can do nothing but avow
You spoke from midnight, and it’s midnight now.

(Stephen Edgar [source])

I first heard about the group called The Famous via the Beat Surrender blog. The tagline at the band’s Web site says, “A shot of classic country with a post-punk chaser.” Their bio clarifies:

To put it another way: take the ’50s-era country of Hank Williams, Sr. and filter it through ’70s punk rock, ’80s psychobilly, and ’90s post-punk. You’ll find yourself staring eye-to-eye with San Francisco’s own “Pixies in a cowboy hat.”

No, you’re not alone: I’m not sure what that means, either. But I do know I like this macabre, “Night of the Living Dead”-meets-David-Lynch number (which, with all due respect to all the above musical genres, feels mostly like languorous Dixieland). It’s the official video for the title track from their second album, “Come Home to Me” (lyrics below):

(Love the twitching toe!)

Lyrics:

Come Home to Me
(The Famous)

I went down, to the river’s edge, with hopes to find you where
I took in too much water, trying to get some air
And you came to me, in a vision of soft light, so pale, so fair
It seems so very real to life, but you were never there

Please come home to me…

So I went back to the well, which had not yet run dry
And when I got down to the bottom of it all
Something caught my eye
As I looked up toward heaven, I thought I saw you there
But you were looking down in the water
Much to my despair

Please come home to me…

Floating along the river, I haven’t got a care
Face down in the water
You’ll find me there