She seeks love resembling music, cracks
of shine in wills of wonder, a velvet
recline in a pair of calm hands, what
dreams advise her by torch & rapid, lovers
eye her cheek & shoulder, not enough,
the moon mutters & she agrees: not enough.
She carries a mirror framed by red
leaves, in it her fancies glow, her
teacups glitter. Listen twice: she seeks
love resembling music, with rackety nails
& small howls. She studies how the moon
lacks hurry, wishes to praise & chew this.
In the rain she practices clarity,
shapes her singing, carves each movement
from most piercing intents, becomes a wet
girl with a goddess grin. Each day she
learns again to know nothing: she seeks
love resembling music. Revelation: spirit & sugar.
But not enough, growls the moon. Not enough.
She contrives new costumes with scraps of
color & rhythm, stains her chamber with drizzle,
with pearls, furs her feet, bombards her
hair with spangles, slivers of tortoise shell,
blackest silk, reddest lacquer. Not enough!
Now she sings it with the moon. A motto of
defiance, badge of faith. The only love
that matters is that resembling music,
the kind that gilds within, she looks
about in darkness unto dawn, smacks
down poems which less than matter,
swigs what few remain & hands off her
slopping chalice to the moon. She
hears me say I love you & nods.
She'll add my shadow or two to her
cacophonous flow. So this is submission:
Moonlight's girl bids me rise. Wishless
desire. A tremble passing happiness.
******
xxxii. Whiplash
You star & elude, occupy what I lack,
call for a harder beat, scream up
armies of dancers, Artist woman, fist &
tremble, wrench away then whisper
"help me" too full of smiling to deny--
Yes. Swirl. Yes. Raise strange angles
in my mind, slick patterns, jumping
failures, raise them & more, point
twice toward the mountains, explain
nothing, go on, I'll call you a queen
& neither of us will laugh--
Your voice slides across my dreams,
singing thick hungers. Dance with
my eyes closed, do, we both know
absence contrives biggest beauty.
Strum, hurry, hush, swing me a kiss
powdered with sugar & empathy.
Artist woman, your doom, your mission,
even your toys & baubles are there
for your merciless transformations. Begin.
Now several notes, now a crush, now a
canyon. Continue, a beaver, an arroyo,
a passage for counting spectres. Conclude,
but for just a moment to brush your hair,
& calm your sciroccos. For a moment
to taste you, call a passing conflagration
we. For a moment you arrive &
lay back in love's crackling nest.
Artist woman, feel my ink & my gaze braid
among your hours. Your trailing silence
gathering feathers of music for your work.
Legs swishing, eyes summing, lyrics cover
your every wish. What's to come will fatten
my books with songs everyone will know.
******
xxiii. Collision
Beauty is guerilla, hurries by with a
stinging flicker, the smack of evening
pines blowing spells, trickles of new love
become a bone-hard symphony ruinous
to every recent intent.
I call you a collision, girl, a mound of
apples & their steel teeth.
Beauty a daily bath of fire, bladed roar
from depthless center, driving
mockeries & harder rhythms, years flee,
the flames pursue. You ache as the
sunshine crawls across your cheek.
I call you a collision, child, the way
the universe eludes blunt evocation.
A collision, late sunshine & murmuring
prelude, leaves raving in grey, gold, &
crimson. You, a collision, artist in
blood's accelerating vehicle, singing to the wheels.
A collision, by the tracks, solid as
hot bread, ambiguous as kisses within
full moonlight. Collision, girl, now stand
again today. Your pieces still fit. Your wide
shimmering field lays open, yet unbreached.
Collisions come in rises, linger as stains,
the sky at your border, weighted, sprinkling,
lovers on your sea, choppy sails, fragments
of stars. Collisions tell a hungry woman
she will not always dance alone.
Now turn on the morning, guerilla come
again in songs crowding you from dream's
nets. Feel the curves in your mind leading
you onward by whisper & fist. Collisions
will break your bubble, girl, & again.
******
xxxiv. Liberation, Part One
No revelation, no resolution, no yes for
every no, or final no, grey & lasting.
The music dreams you on & on, through
promise & pain, & again. The leaves
come & go, maybe a limit, maybe a lesson.
***
No revelation, no resolution, no stronger yes
for every strong no, or lasting no, grey
& final.
The music dreams you on & on,
through promise & demise, & again. The leaves
come & go, a limit, a lesson.
Then a bend
in the rain, a scribble, a sting, something
new climbs from dreams & embers.
Wish it
so, not so, sigh, sup, build a world from
sugar & spirit. Embrace it all. Let it go.
See what remains. A whisper lingers. Nocturnal
moan, watch a heart empty its red gold, & its
shell depart by morning. Watch. Hands unclasp
& nothing matters awhile. No revelation, no
resolution, scriptures trail into fists & fire.
***
No revolution plays out bluntly through
the wires, no revelation leads to an
easy bed & soft dreaming, no resolution
holds tough by both sunshine & full moon.
Yes & no each leak truth, bleed Beauty,
& the music dreams you on & on,
past premise & promise, leaves, limits,
lessons. Scratches at your ache, compels
your dark something greater into the rhythm,
presses, & again, then a bend in the rain,
a squeal, a sting, your dark something newly
wrought climbs from dreams & embers.
Wish it so, not so, sigh, sup, build a world
from sugar & spit, embrace it all,
let it go, see what remains. What
remains. A whisper, nocturnal moan,
residua, nothing less, watching a heart empty
its red gold, & its shell disappear with morning.
Watch. Hands unclasp & nothing matters
awhile. Revolution, revelation, resolution,
words dead of power, their pages fold into fists
& trail into fire. Liberation's sweet noise rises
in the dark, a secret child listening closely.
New magick yet in the crumblingest bones.
***
Revolution begins where ideals cross solitude,
the weak place where soul bulges toward soul,
something finally upon an hour burst, finishing a
corrosion of days, knuckled words at a corner, slap,
hustle, again, again, revolution begins when
there are no deterrents left, leafless forests,
too many silent pilgrims along the boulevard
by dusk, by light, revolution becomes awhile
what hearth & window once were, what rain
once meant, what books once cradled.
The fire now snaps with fistly compulsion,
the drums choiceless roar, the dancers
rawly summon stars & flicker loins' power.
Again the music dreams you openly,
past premise & resolution, again you
sing with words brilliant as icicles, &
when the dark something within howls
you bark back, ferociously, antlers, claws,
stingers, webs.
Embrace it all. Let it go. See what remains.
Wish it so, not so, growl, feed, wreck,
suffer. Hunt the idea lacking, what will revive
crushed things, whiten the lace, renew the need.
See what remains. A whisper, residua, nocturnal
moan. What remains. Watch again a heart empty
its red gold, its shell disappear by morning, &
again hands unclasp, & again nothing matters
awhile. Watch. What remains? Dead of power,
corrosion of days, knuckled words, slap,
hustle, the hour bursts, the world blurs,
anything means everything, again,
revolution begins, roaring green power
out of soul & soil, sky variously lit
for countless revelations, again you flare
with remembrance & renewal, again the shriek
for abyss bursts wide into murmuring possibilities.
***
Liberation falls by daylight, dirty, comical,
without muscle or engine, falls with its leaves
of promise, its loving skies so near, falls
among the dappled sheets & street hackings,
disfigured candles, renewed presence of scars
& soot, falls by diminishing strum, miscarried want.
What carries through accelerating light an
echo, a silent pilgrim nodding by a willow,
an echo, dark something within pacing about
sparks of merry, an echo, an ember,
an obscured text of sweet noise. Dreaming
crosses mapless shadows, stubborn's tough quest.
Near again, the night murmurs in traffic,
jingling the fog, imagines tapping fingers
to conjure, cool eyes to make. A dribble,
then a pool. Now the folds of its dress
induce, now they summon, now they wrap,
now consume. A thrum, a movement.
Liberation. Liken to a key ringing against
stone, to a burst of red gold through a
soul's open blossom, a strange incandescence,
new each time it comes, liberation, chew
its nipple, caress its strings. Glowing gravel
in its billowing rise, its threat & its fragile
dance wars ever fought, love's every blade, death's every song.
***
Liberation stretches by music's freakish
dreaming, yowl, shudder, fists blossom,
crowds spread toward chanting, preachers
chase to follow, into mountains of forest,
through oceans of leaf, sweet noise rising in
the dusk, power roaring from soul & soil,
& let a dark something into the rhythm,
let dancers & kings trade blades over
which bright world will be, let what
can be burned, burn, see what remains,
turn awhile from the path pilgrims ever
walk, let something called revolution
play out bluntly through the wires, let red
gold spill & true magick scatter, huddle
within depths watching passing glares
spatter the walls, books & radio dormant,
tonight's bedchamber dully safe. The music
dreams you on & on, freaks dressed
in tatters & care. On & on, no revelation,
no resolution. The music dreams you
on & on, leaves come & go. No limit. No lesson.
******
xxxv. Liberation, Part Two
"How the heart approaches what it yearns. . . "
--Paul Simon
The world ever opens out like an
offering hand, like morning tossed out
from dreaming, like a tree dazzled in
moonlight, like the careening noise &
silence of a keeping dance.
Liberation surrenders to suffering & stillness.
Liberation submits to love's tossings, the whiplash
of internal starfire.
Not at peace, dance harder, eat every beat
deeper, feel the world open out in gunfire
& poverty. Feel the war crossing nearby
streets, & peace hustle & snicker right
after, & music lay across every night like a golden bomb.
Liberation is soul twined, mournful but still
moving. Slave to nothing: say it again. You are
a slave to nothing.
Suffer. Suffer. Then let something bright
& unbidden in, let it knock about your
walls, noisy with strange rhythms, cries
& confessions. Suffer. Then let others in &
watch them continue building your world while you writhe.
Liberation watch it flow away & have
to follow. Love her from afar. Love them
all from afar. Learn again how to near.
Slave to nothing: say it again. You are
a slave to nothing. Suffering. Say yes.
Say it again. It mounts valleys & years.
Say yes. Then something else. A new
hour.
Wings, shadows, a turn. How to live alongside
blade, submission, & passing clouds. The world
ever opens out like an offering hand. Accept.