i. 6/8/2000 On board Boston-to-Hartford Greyhound bus
something, not yet word, nor yet shine
yet beyond shadow, no longer blue fancy
i don’t know. a game, this cosmos? time + play?
something from somewhere. wreckage of a dream
not yet word, nor yet shine, no longer blue fancy.
******
ii. 6/8/2000 On board Boston-to-Hartford Greyhound bus
world not revolving, no, world undulating,
the flow of energy into, out of, creation,
time a mischief floating nowhere, everywhere
time spun by fear, evaporated by laughter
time the bluest note in eternity’s starshine
time thinned of power is bliss. happiness without limits.
******
iii. 6/8/2000 On board Boston-to-Hartford Greyhound bus
universe, we do not know thee most times
universe, we mistake thine glimmer for thine truth
universe, art thee grasped somewhat listening
to heartbeat, falling through water?
universe, we writhe & reduce thy depths to
our tears, our stories, our loves,
our deaths, our beliefs
universe, we mistake our identities for our truth
universe, we are things, we are animals,
we are spirits, we pray while deaf,
we are someone from somewhere. who are we?
******
iv. 6/8/2000 On board Boston-to-Hartford Greyhound bus
Holy night, reverence to thee in wakefulness
& restlessness
observe what emerges, what disappears
Kindly night, the brighter hours led into
diminishing, a fell distance
but silent
Night dancing, nocturnal ecstasy, pouring
& burning & crying & arriving into
dreams, the door, dreams, the open door
Night raging, a herd wild, grieving, unsure,
lost, clues everywhere, even fancies
roar with Goddly might
Night the blank paradise still dotted
with glimmers of resistance, filling,
emptying, everywhere a prophet,
a scripture, a chunk explaining
the beginning hurling tandem with one
explaining the end while
Night roars there is no difference!
******
v. 6/8/2000 On board Boston-to-Hartford Greyhound bus
anxious, irritated, closer to the source-—
fire explains only fire. love reveals nothing.
trees provoke patience.
kindness seems more important.
there is always movement. nothing changes.
memory of a tin shack in the woods. memories
mean nothing.
******
vi . 6/8/2000 On board Boston-to-Hartford Greyhound bus
remove i from the mulling, the equation,
yes, simply efface narsiss & regard how
all glows, clarity
love explains nothing. hunger is about hunger
nothing yet has been abandoned here
everything remains at stake
******
vii. 6/9/2000 On board Midway-to-Clark & Lake
Chicago Transit Authority train
listen to the obscure tongues of the world,
& beyond, listen, many musics begin to tally
to meanings among words, secret hustles &
romances, collisions fanatics heed, & often
mis-read
what is the light deferring to?
listen for the quieter, & yet quieter still governors
of change, continuance, for the many musics
beyond sweetness & flail . . . listen for what
is listening to you, how it watches you
clenching tighter while trying to let go
how it laid a teaching grid so long ago, how this
grid awaits you. stop seeking. listen.
******
viii. 6/9/2000 Kronies Pub,
near Division Street, Chicago, Illinois
without sinking, to fall, to fall, &
know nothing once more, happily
til shiny is funny, loud shudders one
curiously, til maybe the clouds are
passing or is it really the earth?
new. old. attitudes slick & soiled or baby’s gold.
the fires are small throughout the city
tonight, many of them, silly, dull
but something else too, something furious
with its own existence, how to live,
how to live, how to live & why.
******
ix. 6/10/2000 Corner of Division Street
& Lasalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois
Things clearer in context but perhaps
better alone.
Suffering given a how & why glows lower
& pathetically
Yon street corner cannot be explained
A taxi for every direction, most empty
& sad
4 a.m. & all is lost
4 a.m. has no how nor why ———
******
x. 6/10/2000 Art Institute of Chicago
Vincent Van Gogh, "The Bedroom,"
1889, oil on canvas
Things twist fall, curve, tricks, there is
too much meaning, then there is none,
doors & windows do not help when the floor
is giving way, doubt, mangy truths
alone are left, the mirror is blank,
mirrors are always the first to relinquish hold,
best to lie abed? whistle at the collapsing
windows? Rush through the door hungry &
laughing?
Best perhaps to crawl into one of the
paintings on the wall, watch from
the other side the collapse imminent,
best to stay still & hope what was back
there now growls with all the danger
of riled air. The last of us will be gone
a long time before it is generally known.
******
xi. 6/10/2000 Martyr’s Pub,
Chicago, Illinois
Silence kills. Silence heals. Language is captive
music, visible flakes of cosmic mystery.
Absent the I all seems possible again.
Empty poppy fields— er, no, poppy fields
absent of the human I
Wintry glowing wheat stacks— the obscure
allowed some chance again
Even when the corpsey man plays
the blue guitar . . . something . . .
something . . .
More air. More wild music. The kind
no I has ever been able to hear.
******
xii. 6/11/2000 Art Institute of Chicago
Claude Monet, "Stack of Wheat,"
1890-1891, oil on canvas
Six windows, each with a communication,
a lesson, a yawp, so it seems
Stack of wheat in a snowy field
lightless grey sky, trees & farmhouses
in the distance, the field is covered
in pink & blue & white brushstrokes
The wheatstack is assembled thusly only
to be taken apart again, this is one
of its several moments, this is the bit
of time, the place it gets & did it
mind posing for Monet’s brush a century ago
and could it mind, & thus think, would
it be impressed with how long its residua
has lasted beyond farmer, cows, painter?
******
(xiii.) Claude Monet, "Stack of Wheat
(Snowy Effect, Overcast Day),"
1890-1891, oil on canvas
Could it reason, could it dream, did it
remember, could it hope, what of the
many overcast days it knew, the snowy silences
in rural France, did it brood, doubt?
Give it a name, call it Reality, yes, good,
this suits, mmm, Reality is alone,
in the cold, Reality is snowed upon, Reality
is assembled without consent, Reality will
be gone anon, will be food, or maybe just
rot, there are other wheatstacks
helpless in this field too, they share
similar stories, they give each other
comfort with presence alone, covered
in the same snow, the same grey sky
above, the same unknowable fate,
perhaps, or is there more to it?
******
(xiv.) Claude Monet, "Stack of Wheat (Thaw, Sunset),"
1890-1891, oil on canvas
Reality during the thaw, Reality at
sunset, oil on canvas, every living
thing can nearly be reduced to a formula,
nearly, Reality alone in this dreaming,
the farmhouses, the trees in the distance,
even fellow haystacks, Reality alone
& dreaming, thawing, sunset, no
remembrance nor regret, no expectation,
no words of any kind. The breeze is warmer &
kind. Reality floats, nearly evaporates, a
shadowy blotch in a vague pulsating landscape,
oil on canvas, 1890-1891, release is
temptation for all creatures, final
cessation to suffering & music.
******
(xv.) Claude Monet, "Stacks of Wheat
(Sunset, Snow Effect),"
1890-1891, oil on canvas
What if the music burns too hard & the
suffering becomes comic? What if
the worst that can happen was being
created at all & one fine wheatstack
golden dusk the wind & the shadows &
the ton-heavy colors all cried "Gift!"
Reality drifts & swirls & wishes to follow
Reality calls for more colors, wilder music,
the beginnings of a new freedom
Reality does not think in cycles & maya but
to reinvent the world you must begin
everywhere & nowhere————
******
(xvi.) Claude Monet, "Stacks of Wheat
(End of Day, Autumn),"
1890-1891, oil on canvas
without sinking to fall, to fall, &
know nothing once more, happily
there is attraction among all things,
there is will to creation, will to annihilation,
there is beauty in the young & in the
decrepit, in that which shines &
that which lies in a ruin behind a gate &
a sign & a padlock
the truth of Reality is no-truth, only
a continuous becoming of all that
exists through a cycle briefly visible, sunsets
in autumn, the many wiggles of one’s body
then sleep, then dust, then the truth,
perhaps answers, plain, even blank
******
(xvii.) Claude Monet, "Stack of Wheat
(End of Summer),"
1890-1891, oil on canvas
Morning. Or perhaps coming night. The end.
Or perhaps we still do not know a thing.
Poor Reality. Debased with understanding.
All is maya. Perhaps.
Shadows dim more of the colors, mute more
of the music. Until one discovers that
seeing & hearing, learning, knowing,
the ecstasy of a dance, the sullenness
old wounds are
all kin. All that is, is kin. The farmer,
the hungry cows, Monet, oil, canvas,
all flows, all matters, nothing is lost,
nothing is unimportant, all feeds all,
the emptiness felt by embodied creation,
yes, a valid assessment, pain, woe,
the wildness of pulsating creation
The lesson each can teach each
all can teach all, they’re just
wheatstacks, paintings on a wall,
yes, but from this perspective watch
how everything ends, & a beat, & all begins again.
******
xviii. 6/12/2000 Art Institute of Chicago
Pablo Picasso, "The Old Guitarist,"
1903-1904, oil on canvas
He no longer plays the notes, no longer
sings the words. There never were
notes, or words. There was springtime.
Yes. & children too. There was the ocean spray
that warped & defined the instrument
but it really played nothing.
He remembers. O yes, this is how it really
was. Perhaps one fellow did really
play the music in all those years. Perhaps.
A gypsy. Scum. But the night he charmed
her, fires, dreams, a roasted pig, yes— well,
perhaps. So that was music, really music,
the night never really burned like that
before or since. Crosses & cunts.
Piety of priests & senators crafting sewage
from platitude & revolver.
To play one true note. To refuse the coin.
To reach beneath this life’s nightly bed
of rubble & come up with a handful
of sunshine. Just once.
******
6 x 36 Nocturnes, series one, #1-18
This morning began the posting here of my poem series 6 x 36 Nocturnes, begun in June 2000 and finished in December 2004. My idea for this poem series is partly sourced in the electronica music idea of "mixing," which involves taking bits of distinct pieces of music to form a new piece of music. In the case of poetry, this would involve key words and phrases used over and over in variation, poems gestating other poems, calling forth and backward. As the series developed my ambitions for what was possible grew. In any event, today appears the first 18 of 360 total poems.
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 51 guests