xix.
To play one true note is to become
slave. Seeking the next. Hustling
the twilling birds & the midnight skies.
Believe it lurking in a pair of pink
panties, in the silent desert,
somewhere in a crowd of swaying faces.
Ever after the pursuit of the next true
note, in a voice shiny with bracelets
& starlight, in a hand seen as a
language. Breasts confused, minds ransacked,
dreams haughty & irregular, to play
one true note is bondage. Nothing but
the flames are godds thereafter, nothing
but orgasm & death worthwhile news.
The tongue sliding down throat to breast
to belly to bush to buttocks to back
ceases if her breathing proves not
tuneful, if clouds shroud starlight
over the hill, if she or the cosmos itself seem
too or too little willing.
***
xx.
Tonight I let you go. I must
walk on. Our blossom was of but
a season. It will not survive the
heat. It was a thing of frost, a single
secret evanesced with the sun's tendings:
This summer you will finally hunger
anew. Call it my gift. Now I must
have sense enough to let you go. Walk on.
Let you go, tonight, & thence scrape
& fumble for my music back.
Our blossom was sugar, now melted,
now dew—a blessing, a jaguar,
fierce, a flu. A truth, a way, a gleaming
penny in starlight. A cloud, a something, a whatever
coated with greed for love's secret brew.
***
xxi.
To play one true note, play it blonde,
call it you, release not to loss but
to this yearning heart tonight, my
every thought abuzz & mulling with you,
my every denial a headlight hurling
toward a brick wall—
To play one true note, to tell the truth,
along a roadside thick with listening weeds,
charms chanted in chirps, a wind
pressing, sky velvet, one true note
here, where something stays, where I return—
To play one true note, much beauty
the blossom of a season & then gone,
but blossoms contain leaves &
leaves branches & something persists
beyond dogma & formula, something
new erupts with milky glee, & again—
To play one true note & call it by
your name, neither godd nor goddess,
nor they you, nor each of these weeds
another nor the sky a wall nor the
ground a floor nor the known always true—
To play one true note, play it blonder,
eyes of blue. Hope invisible, dreams
ferocious, unhoused cats & secret skunks
return to old havens or prowl for new.
I live with spirits within bricks.
I live chased & chasing, a growl, a mew—
To play one true note, among
the weeds & the streetlamps,
the cruisers blaring by, the night
shimmies with heat. I make Art
to remember how to tell the truth.
Serve the muse. Serve the muse. Serve the muse.
Black pen dancing blindly moth wild—
***
xxii.
Serve the muse. Serve the muse. Each stone
of Art added to the hill. Woods shroud
the hill, branches shadow it.
Serve the muse. She receives to give. The buzz
in the wind, thoughts for a strum, colors
for a tone. Release, grow. The skies
clear, cloud, add another stone to the
hill. Serve the muse. The whole of
the universe something soft—flesh—breathing.
While the buildings elsewhere erupt &
topple, sweating hands grip what is
disintegrating, return here again & again.
The hill grows & breathes in rhythm with
the trees. Serve the muse. Come & go
& come again. Here a staying music. Shimmering permanence.
***
xxiii.
Serve the muse. With fiery branch
& roaring texts. Ascend, diminish,
extinguish. Serve the muse with belly
stiff & eyes fearful flicking. Alone for
days among machines & dust. No
fingers to tap nor hearts to stroke.
Dreaming memories of canyons, of
the pummel of aliens. Spacecraft
passing over deserts for highway noise,
annihilation sprung from a hatch,
a thousand thousand alien bats, plastic,
organic, headless, savage. Serve the
muse she offers these nocturnal treats
to jar & press. A line of people bound
for the disintegration booth. A timetwisted
summons to an old wound of a war.
The world’s deepest waters refuse men
yet she tips open the idea & men
figure how. Serve the muse. She is love
& restlessness. Burn the forests, build
the boats. She plucks from the flock
& births the egg. The hands & its
chalice. The clock & the moon. Serve the
muse. Serve the muse. Midst chirp &
growl, the daze of this hour, the coming
dream, the difficult instruction. New faith with the sun.
***
xxiv. Confession
What remains a holy emptiness,
persistence of your tone, your love
of unhoused kittens, Caribbean sun,
you sucked & gnawed at my words
for their secret, for you, not me,
a milky shiny secret, a memory, a thrill—
You’ve known none like me. I was
your first & last, your crevice of
treasure, your secret burning city
of bliss, your unplayed forest of
carnal notes, a bomb to splay &
scatter your demons & silence.
Love. Only love. We had only love.
A new milk each time, a glee,
a hunger, a touch, a pounding,
a shredding, buckling, a crushing,
breathing now in chorus, truth
of it better than a crown or a fancy—
What remains a holy emptiness,
persistence of a shared space, ten
thousand words on a rack of pages,
the mouth of whipping beast opening
a chasm between maybe & memory,
a milky regret, poison, then cure.
Today, tomorrow, to awaken, to begin,
seek new curves, whittle new notes,
figure the formula of a new she-beast,
wish you a happy, hungry lover who
will thank me for having been, & gone—
love. Only love. We have only love—
A holy emptiness. Milky nocturnes,
trickling starlight. Loveless machines
& bitter dust. Lessening til you remain
but a myth. Ten thousand words
on a rack of pages. Did you find their
secret just for you? How to let me go?
***
xxv.
Embrace it all. Let it go. See what
remains. Call your life’s times
shadows on the walkway. A fruit fallen
& lying in the grass. No secret.
No gleam. No way. Lamplights flare on
with thickening dusk, no direction but
home, sniff for the music, begin to follow.
Summon her, your music, tho belly stiff &
eyes dreaming dust & starlight. Pick up
the fallen fruit, again. Ten thousand
songs in every bite, every chew. Fiery
branch, roaring thoughts. Milky nocturnes.
Become a new fool in service of her night.
***
xxvi. Childhood
Become a new fool in service of her
night, its rushing lights, wishing hours,
holy emptiness.
Holier music. Strums of starlight. No death.
Just become a different range of rhythms.
Higher colors. Become the word love.
Ease roots from this mortal soil, its
life-thinning mix of regret & sensation.
No hellos. No goodbyes.
Each leaf’s blood weaned of grab & grief,
entropy’s wailing smell. Vision rising,
colors & bells, become a new fool
in service of her night, her heating
touch remembrances willow trees &
crabapples, wagons & children, an
ancient fire a night’s suicide put out.
***
xxvii.
Serve her, her night, beyond
trembles & tears, the flashing
passage of spasm, & mourning, serve
her with open hands, with the
danger of obssession, the greater
danger of love, service to fireballs & freaks
The danger of love mistaken
for polity, for treaties, for history,
love confused with daylight, daylight’s
shackle of numbers, daylight’s pressures
to breed rules, trim incantation, square off
dirt & women, love mistaken for safety
Serve her night, its wailing, no
ease, she pulses, always, all that
is, pulses. Skies clear, buildings
erupt. Break down. Burn. Build
again. Love scrambles from every
rubble. Smile aching with release.
Serve her, serve her night. No bones
nor chords. Her truth will not give
way, love neither beginning nor end.
Call her Art, dream, man, woman,
oak, song. Rap a thousand trunks in
chantless rhythm. Answers flicker out with dawn.
***
xxviii. for Leni, time passing
Our dividing to learn better to love,
burned to blankness one day, yes,
& a later one build up again, yes,
love the beauty of a season &
gone. Blossoms bloom & pass & thus
the story of the universe.
Universe, art thee grasped somewhat
as heartbeat, falling through water?
A flail, a flow, a flu? A friend
watches the hawks & gulls &
scribbles his musical sums. Another strums
& puffs, smiles & suffers, tends his striplings.
But you & I dividing, for the better,
preachers wave the flames & texts
of mitosis. Entropy & resurrection,
old joke among the raw hands.
They know we don’t need gills to inhabit
this universe. Just nimble toes.
Just fingers loving the green. Are you
listening, diminishing love? Things
grow & pass for a reason. Grow, my love.
Grow green & good. I will write
& pray for you from further &
further away. My prayers beseech
this universe for your healing.
As we divide, as nights & starlight
pass by, grow green & good.
***
xxix. Self-portrait, fragment
4:20, take a hit, begin again,
sunlight spattering on curtains old
& quiet, the man watching them
just a body, head of a dog,
heart of a deer, lungs of an oak,
soul of a comet, 4:25 now, take
another hit, his girl’s been missing
most of his life, hence ten thousand
cries on a rack, begin again, in danger,
in love, 4:30 & a third hit for smiles’ sake—
***
xxx. No direction but home
A fruit fallen & lying in the grass,
its skin gleams finely & brokenly,
cleft from its tribe now begins its dreaming,
a hunger builds within its raging song,
a cluster of moans gives way to a single trill,
high & clear, simple as sunlight & death:
No direction but home. No direction but home.
The wider sky, the deeper magick, waning’s comfort,
bluer breezes, bluer grasses, bluer tempos,
the gift of water, life’s visible promise,
creatures & leaves moving slower,
the edges of the world less scribed,
more paintbrush’s dream, less pencil’s answer:
No direction but home. No direction but home.
Dream to rap a thousand trunks in
chantless rhythm, force stream & starshine
into a dangerous exchange of roles,
cut into the fearful arrogance of men,
whip weather with garden & arroyo,
die twice daily like this, better to eat & shit other times:
No direction but home. No direction but home.
Comfort & fire, the mystery of dust,
querying creatures, loose-boweled thoughts,
begin again, comfort & forgetting,
history dwindling to a moment, another,
begin again, sunlight & death simple
again, dreams of my seeds, shimmering:
No direction but home. No direction but home.
Night raging, a herd wild, grieving, unsure,
lost, clues everywhere, seeds everywhere,
seed & dreams & water & sunlight,
a thousand chantless rhythms now
ragged with melody, seeds preach of
the starshine & stream within, sugar & maya:
No direction but home. No direction but home.
What remains a holy emptiness, a fruit fallen
& lying in the grass, its skin gleaming
finely & brokenly, beyond cleaving & dreaming,
beyond hunger, just a song becoming
itself forever, travelling simple as sunlight & death,
no direction but home. No direction but home.
***
xxxi.
Completion begins in despair, emptiness,
hands loose, hurrying the empty road,
drops lead to thunder, shadows move
in the weeds, a different path, the
quietest hiss of a choice, but what place
for a man save among his own?
From despair a new dream, a bigger dream,
from emptiness no longer a dream at all,
the world is fat with miracle & woe,
dreams of my seeds, of a flash to life,
won’t happen tonight, my empty bed, my hovel’s
brick walls, what place in the world at all?
***
xxxii.
4:20 again, raise the power, fingers
twined with smoke, grown green & good,
seekers & outlaws across the land,
grow green & good, raise the power,
become seeds for some new star's
quest, but I am in my bed right now,
brothers & sisters, no puff to play, no
hands to twine, just milky nocturnes,
& a power I'm trying to raise, part
kindness, part stiff belly, wanting
to be willing, to be more than free,
to be committed in the shit &
the joy, ten thousand words on a rack,
then thousand racks, risks & rebels,
fear, all-night burns, rawness,
bravery, open hands, randy heart,
a puff for fraternity, another for
conviction, grown green & good,
seeds for some new star's quest—
like the few freak bees seeking the hive's next honey.
***
xxiii. for Leni, June 2001
To begin again, begin continuously,
raise the power, again, tonight,
summon the torches & the blades, soberly call
love by its secret name, blood, wash
each finger in oil & juice, raise the flag,
leave music sleeping midst kittens & blonde hair—
The music is quiet, passive in the clatter
of metal & wood, skulks in moonlight,
creeps into the canvas sack of oranges
& pears, remains but dawn smoke in
the heart, a secret fury for building over
battle, for the flash of seed over clashing earth—
Muse she dreams troubles & division,
dreams of empty benches & farewell
songs, muse she twists among licking
kittens, damp with obscure terrors,
muse she dreams moonlight dreaming
her, something missing. What is love?
The language tonight is that of war,
the one for tyrants, misers, keepers
of the village’s caged flame, a hundred
words for mine, none for we, the
language tonight boasts spiked songs,
folklore for sheep, poetry for swine—
Muse moves naked through the chamber,
a dream-wraith, a furious beam,
preaching with each raging stride,
the only war worth engaging, love,
the only armament an honest hand
ever wielded, Art, bullets of mercy, mercy,
Mercy when she topples me from mine
own fists, beauty in her tight mouth
on mine, love a stench to solitude &
pain, love a messiah among this world’s
broken churches, love stronger than you or me.
***
xxxiv. for Leni, continuing
Tonight, my love, & thus I approach
you, through the steam & scent
of lillies, the chanting buzz of wings
& waving lashes, approach you wearing
my love like a skirt of foam, my eyes
a thousand trembling leaves, my fingers
a wall of panes, a mulling murk
of dusky colors, twisting lingual things,
approach you, head of a dog, heart of
a deer, lungs of an oak, soul of a
comet, belly of milky nocturnes, ten thousand
words on a rack, shaking scripture, flailing torch.
***
xxxv. A fragment, summer’s empty park
Shadows move in the weeds,
a different path, the quietest
hiss of a choice, but what place
for a man save among his own?
What place in the world at all?
What question is the key?
Sweet brown grass, talkless creamy
wind, dank starry ceiling, brick
boxes of families, TV dopers, radio whores,
sugar-tummied princesses, muscle-
flapping linebackers, stained preachers,
damp shopkeepers, lapping statesmen—
Which fence to cut? Which wall to
fell? Which dream to capture, cage,
burn ten thousand words high? Which
poison to gird with firepower? Who
next for the podium, who next for the cross?
A brown moth hustles by, a different path,
the quietest hiss of a choice—
***
xxxvi. All glory passeth, continued
A greater music, & a greater silence,
tonight finally understood as flow
not time, a symphony for strings &
winds, a mountain ballet, an old growth opera,
tonight the choice as always to play
or not the watching sheep, the feeding swine—
Stumble into the night with open hands,
discover wider sky, deeper magick,
all creation in motion, buzzing,
the blood skin & breath of the night
a festival of movement, feeding on
change, chew, swallow, mitosis,
Entropy, a fruit fallen & lying in the
grass, a bomb of sugar water, another
juice in the rhythm, flow where
the preacher sees anarchy & the
tyrant lassitude, but no waste tonight,
not a note which does not elevate or
Depress perfectly, break down, burn,
build again. Wider sky, deeper magick.
Beasts & the good green are dancemasters
again tonight, the blood hustling
music even in the weakest skeleton, body
seeking body for hard, wet commerce—
Love a messiah among the world’s
broken churches, gathering like
loyal kittens especially round the
solitary beds, where a lover’s lick
& whisper lacks, not a creature forgotten
tho a man or woman may think so—
But love is the birthing pyre in
bed, jungle, universe, seeking,
exposing, compelling a glory however
yes it will pass, but teaching
that it forever passes, the healing
prayer at the heart of all creation
& nature tells this & more if
the hand will but touch pink leaf
& eye but scan for hawk & swallow,
nature tells everything in the
trot of an ant, the skulk of a
possum, frosty March, twilight autumn—
Just a different way, different path
than tanks in the desert or
suits in the glass room, a path
not resistant to cycle & role,
a path unknowing of clocks & choices,
a path no man may follow without
tumbling so we make Art to remember
our truth, part leashed lightning,
part beloved tree, seeking ever
the wider sky, the deeper magick,
letting flash our seeds & our rhythms,
sometimes finding a greater music,
a greater silence, a brief name
for the unknown pain awled upon
our hearts, arriving on good nights
in a rain forest, a small fire,
a mug of tea, a puff, a joke, a happy cry.
6 x 36 Nocturnes, series four, #19-36
Tonight added 6 x 36 Nocturnes, fourth series, #19-36...they run a period when one love was ending, it had hardly gone very far even though it went on for months, and at the same time I was re-calibrating my idea of the muse, Art itself, song, what drives me from within, and cannot be taken by temporal romance, if I do not let it, and, thankfully, very thankfully, I have not...I write into my broken heart, survey the wreckages, find a way to trudge on...no bravery in it, just the mortal creature's drive toward survival...and something more than that too...
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