6 x 36 Nocturnes, series two, #19-36

[Cenacle]

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, September 2000


xix. Pierre Auguste Renoir, “Dance at Bougival,”
oil on canvas, 1883

coveting her music, warm, sinewy
because this evergoing silence is cold & dry—

curves & colors, what remains after
anger—

balance & beauty, pain harnessed to
look ahead—

meaning & truth, for as long as necessary,
til laughter & flight—

courting her music, she heeds only news
which does not break—

receiving her music, finally, one day,
& love the wisest trees praise
& clarity every dream conceals.


Six Van Gogh fragments

xx. “The Wounded Veteran,”
pencil, brown ink, black ink,
& wash with white opaque
watercolor, 1883

He misses everything but the eye.
The eye is safe. He knows it history.
Its demise was honest.

The rest drips away slowly. Drip. Drop.
The rest is embarrassing. Requiring a
frequent change of lies.
His remaining eye is widow. A keeper of closed
records--


xxi. Van Gogh’s Sien (a speculation)

She is nothing between sittings. An old
whore. Unhappiness. With pen & brush
singeing paper, her moods & small tasks
approach meaning. I think sometimes she
understands this.

But I do not know. Perhaps I call it my
secret & am satisfied.

Let her sew. Let her family graze about.
Let her share my bed & us share what
we can.

But always she must pose—my pencils, my pens, my chalk—


xxii. “Skull,” 1887-1888, oil on canvas

A fragile stone, pocked with useless orifices,
purpose lost, if ever any, organic
material, unsuited to wise or even
meagre continuance

perhaps brief occupation as a preacher’s
boo-toy, or budding surgeon’s study rag

but in truth should be given in bags
to children, the poor & wild ones,
the ones who know that stones are
for tossing in latter daylight—

& smashing when darkness—& mother’s calls—
arrive.


xxiii. “Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin,”
1888, oil on canvas

There can be no lasting bliss in this
mortal life til nearly everything ever
known is gone, til one’s cell is the air,
one’s scripture the bees, til one’s body reserves
just a little golden moisture, til memory is
nonsense, dreams bunk, all truth & future apparent in
a candle’s winking eye.


xxiv. “Portrait of a One-Eyed Man,”
1888 or 1889, oil on canvas

“All is grief because we must have
it so. So I learned this & now
I understand. All is grief. Simple, eh?

“You want to ask me why? Of course
you do! ‘All is not grief!’ you wish
to cry out, tho you do not, perhaps

“out of respect for me but no, I don’t
think so. No, it’s worse— perhaps
you think I’m right— you fear it”

A new cigarette. Some bread. A knuckle
rubbed against an irritating moustache.

“All is grief. More then this I cannot
say. Whether you choose to believe
or disbelieve, is up to you. A choice.”

A laugh. Several. More wine.

“Yes! Quite! A choice you see! Perhaps
you don’t need to decide tonight. Perhaps
never. Leave it in doubt, eh? Yes! Good!”


xxv. “Self Portrait,” 1889, oil on canvas

What’s left is not death. No.
Death is for morbid scribblers, for
preachers, for sinners, for believers
in a consistency false to this comic
universe’s every obvious way—

No, what’s left is not death. Power.
All this blessed power summoned up,
waves of pulsing, potent muck,
scars atwist memories, the pictures!

No! A constant wound! Defacements!
Stars burned down to fagots—

A life’s anguish. An apex. A dream.

(of nothing. of something—)


***


xxvi.

I haven’t found my home yet so
I keep looking harder & the more
it eludes me the more it seems
I am nearing it—


***

xxvii. Phish concert, Great Woods, Mansfield, MA.

No doubts. Say yes.
Music is truth.
Corridors of rhythm, doors of light

Come on. Leave your body.
Come with me.

I thought it was about someone
I could be wrong.
It could be about everyone

Come with me. You can. We will.
Leave your body.

Say yes. Rain falls in
fireforests of rhythm
Mountains of light.

It’s about Someone. About You.
About Everyone

Come with me. Say yes. Here’s the corridor. There’s the door.


***


xxviii.

Today raise more fires, leave little
protected, someday learn how to leave
it all blowing near the flames, someday
know the freedom of ashes, of feeding
all but one’s hands to the blaze—

Today collapsed into tonight, neither how
nor why, perhaps snared in the ugly
or the fear, but perhaps instead the
lasting nude gesture, cryptic twining with
starlight, the new lover who understands
what to burn down, what to preserve, what to renew.


***


xxix.

Tonight perhaps freedom, maybe
happiness, risk, heavy lights, noise,
warped time, discovered weaknesses
in the wall, push, push, push—

A buzz of mystery, a thrill of energy,
secrets coming visible as the road
approaches extra-dimensionally, ha!
but true, just patience & watch like a net—

If only, reads tonight’s scripture, if only
& do what you will, & make bliss &
liberation from will & daring, yes,
tonight the open door, whirlpool, delight—

A choice. As always. The mountains or
the streets. Trees or grandstands. Dream
or more. Starlight, flesh, or newsprint.
Hustle. Retreat. Safety or symbiosis.

Tonight perhaps freedom, maybe happiness.
Strip down. Decide. Conflagration. Or merely truth?


***

xxx. For Laura

Continuous hustles flung from the invisible.
A face. But not yet. She approaches music
often. Yes, & then once, maybe twice . . .
That spawned from the invisible fucks
with rules, lightly, easily . . . but intensely
too, loss, countless, anticipated . . .

Perhaps dream into the invisible, arrive
on the least wispy end of a lash,
just a moment the arc brings you in,
take her. Now. She’s yours.
For the least moment. Snarl. Liberation.
What was it you saw? What was it
she felt? Laughter. Plummeting.

Music explodes from streetlamps. Follow her.


***


xxxi.

Evening. Shades. Suffering. Symbiosis.
The least thought matters.
There are no least thoughts.
Evening. Desire. That which does not float,
cannot renew & lift,
must be abandoned. True possibilities
burn, & remain.

There is something must be done, a choice,
a truth, a magick in the night’s new
rampage, a gleam, a way. A truth.
Many.
Corrosion. Fear. Bliss.

Something taken while still day while still markless,
now kept at night, pink satchel of wisdom,
shapely wind, movement, no plummeting, laughter.

That which does not float tonight, cannot renew
& lift, must be abandoned.

No assignment to construct or contain the soul—
water, we lash play roll for meaning
for the container, for the outlet, for the
sugar or salt, to give us flavor, instruction.

does this life compel more our madness or
our joy?

The collecting & scattering continue apace—
planting, growth, harvest
fecundity the depthless meister
fecundity growls & flows with wisdom

what watches from within, steers from afar,
prays for the impossible formula

knows answers are for those too pussy for liberation?

Origins. You wish to learn the first note
of fowl & tree. First fire . . . desire . . .
old, old pain. But must existence mean
something to be beautiful? Must words
bead around its melody? What if meaning
glints from texts of water?
All that is, pulses. Something from the past
careens on yet, shimmer-bright &
desert-deep, a chiding energy, a whipping
hunger, the hard fluid of awareness
& regret, child-high with hope, sometimes
greedy, damning, a hollering mist, a cave,
very deep, called Creation, unsentimental seed—

Suffering. Symbiosis. Joy is flaring,
everywhere, always, beyond festival
& songs of dust, pursuit has carried
to another dimension, murders without
bodies, freak concertos mistaken for
walls, rooves, food—

dream of dreams, wake & wonder:
“yes. this is wrong. but what now?”

dream of the heart of the world
watch it breathe, watch it burn,
watch it shiver with ecstasy,
watch it twitch with emptiness

Corrosion. Fear. Bliss. That which does not
float tonight, cannot renew & lift,
must be abandoned. Again: Ask:

Madness or joy?

Or flow, just flow
flow just flow just flow just flow just
flow

release past like chimes dimmed with still &
shun future. shun time. Learn neither to begin nor end.

***


xxxii.

Rhythm of the blossom as she pulses colors innocently.
Color in the cheek of her petals, impatient, blood-hungry.
Writhing, love, writhing, just dreams, hustles for her hope.
Symbiosis, flow, fears, she queries, she twists in light.

Slowly a garden, eventually the sea,
til a nebula bright, at last a spiny dream—

Or perhaps better a shadow, distant movement, but
Love falls, corrodes quickly in the sun.


***


xxxiii. for eleni, October 2000

To begin again, to begin continuously, to learn
how to see full moon always, ocean dawn always,
newly fecund dance always, the moment when
dancestep becomes amour always, begin
again, begin continuously, break open
the egg of laughter, how it spatters over woe!

Will you share your music with me tonight,
new love? If tonight we have but fancies
of each other, joyful clippings extracted
from within our hearts’ sadnesses, is
this to you sufficient to architect a
new beginning? What is love?

Flames of intent, sent by music’s wide
invisible road, kisses resembling phrases,
smiles bouncing off the full moon,
a hand touches another hand through
machinery, did your heart really
jump? Did mine? What is love?

A new dream. A bigger dream. No longer
a dream at all. Begin again, begin
continuously. Neither awake nor dreaming.

This universe a mist, a light, a shimmer.
Neither dream nor awake. Sometimes a
yes-voyage, sometimes a no-voyage.
Full moon always. Ocean dawn always.
We must be dreaming. We must be awake.
We must be beginning. What is love?

Remember you are beautiful. Begin
here. Starry skies ecstatic, blue moods
rising, remember: it’s all good: you are
beautiful. Begin here, return to
your beauty always in the blue-black
midnight of doubt. Remember. Begin here.

Your beauty a new language, a glory rising, full moon
always, ocean dawn always, allow yourself to
be well, at ease, shine: remember.
Shine: you are ready. Release what is
overcast. Choose to be clear. Know beyond awake
the love of your dreams. Mist, light, shimmer.

Begin again, begin continuously. Beyond
awake & dreaming. What is love? I’ll follow
you & learn. What is love? You’ll follow me & learn.

Begin again, again, & rightly call any beginning
a miracle. Touch me with beauty,
I’ll tap you with balance, together we’ll
harness pain to hurl our flight from
dream & awake to meaning & truth,
maybe a love the wisest trees praise,
perhaps clarity which does not break.


xxxiv. for Leni again

There can be no lasting bliss in this mortal life til nearly everything ever known is gone, til one’s cell is the air, one’s scripture the bees, til one’s body reserves just a little golden moisture, til memory is nonsense, dreams bunk, all truth & future apparent in a candle’s winking eye, “all is grief” she says to me, & turns away, waiting for me to defend this precious yet strangely indefensible existence, I know not what to say save “I love you” & “I will carry you’ & “I cannot give up on you” & “there’s more! wait! don’t go yet!”
& I turn to my shamans, the trees, wishing so dearly I could breach the chasm of silence between this intense peculiar moment & the wider eternity in which their music may be heard, she turns back to me & we clasp hands having solved nay a thing but on we go today, tonight, on we step to the beach, nearing ocean’s exhortations, perhaps at midnight to a moonless field of lillies, now running, running, running toward the glittering music before dawn & all I have is you & all you have is me but if we get that right the door back into the world will open I promise you, my love, “all is grief, yes, certainly, but so much more”—

All this blessed power now summoned up, waves of torrid pulsing, scars atwist memories, what do we have now in this shared dream isle? What have we done in creating this? What do we do now? Neither of us can & yet together we do, see how clear all is at moments, my love, the bells of laughter, the freak tornadoes of Art, here we are, no option but to awaken & once awake to merge what we believe is possible & to begin again, it seems to be what one does, my love, nobody who burns ever brighter escapes the endless reverberation of smoldering down to fagots, & a miracle re-ignition, & the slow rise back to danger & fecundity, all this blessed power now summoned, magic brewed from despairing nights & rousing blood, we must never become believers in a consistency false to this comic universe’s every obvious way, no, my young love, we must simply kiss & laugh & flow, grieve & rage, & know that our bonding is a gift not just to each other but also to everything everywhere we now share in the careen of making as it every day wildly
eludes cheap & cowardly & easy annihilation!

& our love a fragile stone, pocked with mysteries, how indeed can it prosper when much we carry along with us is burden once dream, when the bastards without & forces within us seem flat the fuck out against us when isn’t it possible that some great random machine could blink twice & nip you from me from you, when wasn’t all lost years ago along a dirt road with blank signs or was it a night where the very dust of any argument for good or happy or love exited by a puff of false primacy? Our fragile stone, my love, this
ridiculous thing come far too little & far too late but no. Insist. Demand. Sing. Come here. On we go. Today was another day. The sweet little things continue to occur. Our hearts continue to murmur the word yes & the word now & the word hereon & the word JOY. Calm me with a shiver, bless me with a moment, heal me when this seems impossible, bring me forth to new colors I know I can never possess & show how they curl comfortably in my hands, nestlings smiling, patient for my next word.

What art thee, my muse, my young love, when I am neither engaged with thee nor imagining thine beauty? What art thee? My pen & ink singe paper composed from the palette of thine moods & thoughts meaning, melody, roaring raving raging tinging melody, you understand this & pose or I suppose you do & am satisfied—but what fairness in this? Symbiosis of heart blood & bone requires you not simply pose for me for balance can only be achieved when your hand grasps my palette too, when I am still to thy mullings & graspings & makings of note & color from my cheek & shadow—& thus, what am I to
thee, my artist, when you are neither engaged with me nor imagining mine beauty? Shall we learn to love & create each other in neon simultaneity, mutual gifting, mutual reception, come together, love so fierce neither skyline nor burnished dusk nor landscape a thousand dreams wide can preach on unconverted?

Love. Only love. We have only love. Only love between us is good at times. The rest drips away slowly. Drip. Drop. The rest is embarrassing. Requiring a frequent change of lies. A golden-haired maiden. Her fire-eyed suitor. The music in their clasped hands perfect, played for a thousand empty seats while they laugh. They know how to play. They remind each other what joy looks like. Empty beach utopias. Deep forest snow mannequins. Secret family, our romance, fearless & fine, lovely, funny, silly, ten thousand empty seats now, each adorned with a white lilly, we wear masks every night in the final act, masks & nothing else. Love. Only love. We have only love. The rest falls away when we debone its power, acknowledge the foolishness it truly is. A million empty seats as we open every door to every possible dimension & in this exquisite moment we’ve built receive all existence has to offer with neither fear nor remorse. Love. Only love. We have only love. The rest falls away.

You turn back to me & we clasp hands having solved nay a thing but on we go today, tonight, away we pass from the ocean’s exhortations, from the moonless fields of lillies, walking, now slowly, now slower still, “All is grief?” I say, tripping, nervous, “I choose not to believe this.” Wordless, breathless, you listen, wondering if this time I’ll hit the note for which you’ve been waiting, I’ve hit it before, yes, this is why you’re here with me tonight, but can I hit the note & hold it & build you the castle & the tree & the garden & the island you need, of which this note is capable if I can hit it & hold it & press it toward fuller & fuller existence, earth air water fire, make our new love a thing tangible, a beacon, a crucifix, a magick tablet laden with instructions to build up the new world within which you wish to dwell with me, symbiosis, synthesis, happiness sans hysteria? I hit this note now, hold it, shape it, pain burning my every maneuver but I hold it, higher & higher deeper & deeper, gesture toward the manifesting door, there, & another there, & many more above below around & within us, I become now the living note my love & am ready to receive your harmony, do not be afraid anymore, ever, you’ll never walk alone again, come, let us
begin, again.


xxxv. For Leni, three weeks known

I hadn’t found my home yet so
I kept looking harder & the more
it eluded me the more it seemed
I was nearing it—


“I am the sand, you are the sea,”
she wrote with flickering quill,
“A sea of love washes over me,”
she continued, raw with want, with

pending culmination. She approaches music
often. No doubts. Say yes. Music is truth.
Doors of rhythm. Corridors of light. She
hadn’t found her home yet so she kept

looking. Harder. The night clings always
to us. We agreed some woes back &
so’ve neared each other. “I am the
moon,” she scribbles, “you are the sun,”

we are becoming puffs of hand approaching
each other from across dream isle,
the night dawning, trees grooving, younger
critters eager to hustle from nests & covens—

Rains fall on fireforests of light. Mountains
of rhythm & I say to her “I thought
it was about someone. I could be
wrong. It could be about everyone.”

A buzz of mystery as we converge, a thrill
of energy as the pasts & futures of
I’s commingle the feathery flightful
intent of We present intense I cap

her shining locks with whirlpool, she
makes bliss with my young kiss we vow
to teach one another what to burn down,
what to preserve, what to renew— Now.

She’s yours. For the least moment. Snarl.
Liberation. What was it you saw? What
was it she felt? Laughter. Expansion.
“Our love unites us as one” her quill

flitting again, she is unable for long
to block the flow within, without,
& I say “It’s about Someone. About You.”
We near nearer. Mountains. Cherries. Mist.

“Come with me. Leave your body. You
can. We will.” She nods. Child. Maiden.
Matron. Crone. Artist. Healer. Dusk &
door. Street becoming mountain. More

ground into dream. Starlight. Flesh. Newsprint.
As goddess, hustles. As acolyte, retreats.
Wed to me but not for safety, mated to me
to purge hunger, begin symbiosis.

Carnal greed for a new kind of freedom,
happiness flayed of remorse, burbling risk, heavy
lights, creating noise, discovered weaknesses
in the wall, she honies me with her

touch & together we press, press, press—
(It’s about Someone. About You. About
Everyone.) (Haven’t found home yet so
looking harder & the more it eludes

the nearer it seems blah blah blah)
I am the sand. She is the sea.
I flow dry & lingually into her &
she trembles a dram of power through

me until I scream fragrantly,
thrash historically, orate menstrually,
expire in regressive phases, now
only her smile, I am crayons & candles

crushed in the dirt. “You are the
mind, I am the heart” she chants
while remixing me from autumn leaf &
dwarf star. Cryptic twining. Mist & maypole.

I am now raw with want, pending
culmination. “Too,” she murmurs, now gentle
after breach & lesson. “We will never be
too far apart.” I ask again for the kiss

she has already given. Dream isle princess,
dream isle prince. Corfu of the sea.
Oz of the desert. Our home. The least
beginning of a joined scripture.

Cherries. Mountains. Mist. Our blueprint
modelled in six dimensions. Six thresholds.
Earth. Air. Water. Fire. Spirit. Art.
Sand. Sea. Moon. Sun. Mind. Heart.


***

xxxvi. Season of Lights, December 2000

I don’t believe in the god.
I don’t believe in the goddess.

The universe crawls toward worshipping
its own heat.

All is lost. Night is coming. Rest here
while I’m away.

Twenty-three kisses. Maybe twenty-four.
Full moon.

Dream of death. Awaken, still dead. Thus hope.


*

Evening. Time of blue fancies & risen
growls. All is vulnerable,
sweetness & jackal alike.

Some of us so dissatisfied & hopeful we
move with limbs of light, reckon each
step a danger, admit of no moment
that is not cliff or wild voltage kiss—

We watch energy flowing around our
small rooms, stack our books high
against the window, burn
disquieting prayers into our doors,
become conduits, peepholes, willing laughter

for a new rampage, an ancient gleam. An
emphatic way.

*

Dream of death. Awaken still dead. Thus hope.
Heartbeat amplified through water.
Love stilling rage. Rage reminding, resonant

as a fist. Fecundity misunderstood as
other than grief. Fecundity dream
of life. Heartbeat amplified through
water. Tears build our civilizations
& flatten your gods.

*

Universal heat contained not by god’s
exhorting rolls nor goddess’s
righteous urge—

More. Always more. A dance of dreaming.
False governance of naming.

Written from a blaze of nocturnal ecstasy,
spirit projected arching aflame to a
tin shack deep woods—

Thinking: all that is, pulses. We hidden
in the leaves proclaim the truth
of need, of beauty, of pain,
of mystery. Embrace fully neither
life nor death. Trees. Wars. Tides &
artillery—we watch the beams crisscross
our floors & think: foul & think:
perfection. Our meaning is a raw lash
of beauty against a pressing hide of control.

The tin shack murmurs & burbles & shifts
to listen better—

*

Nocturnal breathing all is vulnerable,
love explains nothing, hunger is about
hunger, stop seeking, listen,

in the tiny tin shack angry weather
comes & goes, it is a single room
fluid with awareness & regret,
captured nightmares dry-blood-stiff
on the walls, come sun-up a deafness
descends, creation huddles in a dormant hand.

*

Dance of dreaming. Dream of death.
Something furious with its own existence
loosed every night to roam the soft
corridors looking for a way out,
a pretzel of words fashioned as a key,
panicked blood tainted with powerful
aboriginal symbols, so close, seems so close
to carrying a full heart of unsubdued
rage into the daylight. So close.

4 a.m. & all is lost. All is lost. All seems
lost. 4 a.m. & all seems lost. The
rage wilds about the room, seeking a
mirror to feed back its image. Finds only
reflections of riled air. The clock ticks
toward 5. The rage recedes, breaks
into freaks ecstatic in the desert.
Peyote. New-washed cherries. Beams
riddle the sky bright faceless coins, the
rage differentiates again into cities,
polity, mores, erotic ladders to nowhere,
a million million waking souls & their renewed
pact never never to trespass their own bliss.

*

Toward dawn, eternal music, toward
dawn, colors mad with silence, toward
dawn, the revolution riders never bear
into town. Toward dawn, the music
permeates, the music eludes. Over sea &
scape, mountain & spire, the music manifests
yet men only see rules, order, a principle,
its corollary. She shifts on cot, in bed,
under covers, in the frost, her heart everywhere
shivers hard with ecstasy, she tries to
cause the shift, her thighs & womb & fecund
breast sacrificing to the effort. Learn the
new language of sun & dark matter. Recall
the old language of fire & neural myth.

She cries out. He settles her with water &
caress. She smiles, she is captive music,
a gleam tings her strands. Her way nears.

*

Wherefrom, this torrential residua
of suffering & comedy? Wherefrom?
& what tis? Neath the grope, between
the beams, within the currents, what tis?

Give it a name, a tag at least, call it
Reality, yes, good, this suits, mmm,
Reality is alone, in the dawn cold,
Reality is snowed upon, Reality is
assembled without consent, Reality will
be gone anon, Reality alone & dreaming,

dream of floors & walls, of thighs,
arches, pressure, myth, wings, leaves,
gills, flames, earth, heights, death, light,
wherefrom this torrential residua?

No final truths, just passing moments, sense
of continuance, flow against flow,
the dawn is cold & still, he shivers
all bones & doubt, she lays a hand on
his shoulder, he nearly wakes, nearly breaks
from the vortex, trembles, breathes thicker again.

*

Universe we worship thine heat—
We seek our truest deepest fecundity—
What secret lies within us we dance
ferociously in our dreams—
We seek our meaning by daylight drone
& nocturnal ecstasy—
Yet passing the bedchamber’s mirror, we
seek everything, but see nothing—
All doors open, music freedom’s dancing
badge, still we huddle, creatures
in a cave corner, holding a flickering
stick, a bend symbol of restraint,
hands pressed tightly over our
women’s & children’s mouths—

*


This day like every other will flake away
from rose to onyx, flow just flow,
the meal we seek, the tower we dream,
the loneliness owns us, flow just flow,
loneliness like every other word will flake away
from fire to char, flow just flow,

but today can be immolation, body
leading mind to dust, flowing just
flowing, corrosion in the growing sun,
breaking down, releasing, giving away
loneliness, release, giving away the
need to believe, & just believing

flowers tumble down the stream
amidst playful glints of noise.

*

She dreams reinvention of the world,
flowers flowing in glints of shine,
beyond circles & maya, no truths,
a new dream, a bigger dream,
no long a dream joy! joy! fucking joy!

She dreams beyond joy threat of numbers
& the old loneliness, better choice to
be clear than happy, to be still
than to know
beyond the dream, beyond the effort

She leaves dream behind, looks toward home,
flowers flowing in glints of shine
lead to desert covered in gleaming
freaks & flares the blinding whiteout

She smiles damned pretty, the way at last clear.

*

Morning. Or perhaps coming night. The end
Or perhaps we still do not know a thing.
All is maya. Perhaps.

The night I charmed you. Pointed to
the ocean, shouted “Dream!”
Pointed to you, shouted “Me!”

Pointed to the earth, shouted “Nothing!”
Pointed to the thing that sings between
my legs, shouted “!!!!!!”

Remember then now, this morning I
leave you. Rest while I am away.
Study the prayers burned into our door.

Remember that night when I pointed
to your tummy & whispered “Everything”
& pointed to your eyes whispered “Clarity”

Pointed to the moon & whispered “Clue”
& you pointed to my heart & whispered
“Readiness.”

*

What burns in you is beauty,
the you sun has carved with tools
of light, the you night has moved
to damp with tips flickering,
the you dreams raise to
vital roars, dim to mewing whimpers

Beauty burns in all creation, that
which speeds, that which spews,
towns of greased belief & cities’
crushed horizons, in wombs &
manes, grasslands & chambers,
beauty burns in all creation, bright & painful

Here you are, first & last flower of
the world, no garden, just a breeze
& a drizzle, & too much time to learn
how to bloom, & too little time to find
a stillness in final color, to exude
a knowingness about which dead things do not dream

There you’ll go, join other dreamers
in those hills, find an end to
your ecstasies of thirst, find the heart
that can contain what yours could
not, find the magick that instructs
hearts how to heal what crushes them

There you’ll be, now fully a dream, beyond
knowing’s fruitless toil, beyond days
of flail & nights of noose, beyond
dreams of continuous thirst,beyond
flow, beyond flower, beyond the ragged
man regarding the maidens, not a hope to his name.

*

All alone. All suffering. yes.
Eyes watch nothing.
Within, the pain always new, ready, ravenous.
Without, no possible language of empathy.
Heart a dead jewel beating long without purpose.

The morning light accumulates until
it no longer exists.

All alone. All suffering. yes.
Eyes watch nothing.
Voices undulate like water. Dream.

The universe a mist, a light, a shimmer.
Sometimes a tapping, nearly a rhythm, music?
The curtains swish. A young creature dreams,
curled in sunshine.
A music? Doorway out. Doorway ahead. Doorway.

All alone. All suffering. yes. Eyes watch nothing.
Then hope passes through, a lamb, a laser. A leap.
Hope laughs. Hope jingles. Hope trespasses silence.
Hope leaves. Hope never leaves. Spring always comes.
A sprig of green energy within, still blind, presses.
Walk til you can fly. Fly til you can dance.

Remember you are beautiful. You have no choice. Sing!

*

Resurrection, immolation, continuous,
til the eyes forget, the ears blur,
the mind tucks away, it’s always
been like this, today, tomorrow,
the persistent & samely shaped stains in things—

Lone woman’s smile trespasses the magickal
heat a green blanketed body leaks down steps.

Stains & trespass: the soft sound
of flesh breathing midst grope, metal &
wallet—magickal heat in the city
shaped for art, for might, for
clarity, for history, for hairy man-gods, for little

Lone woman’s smile crosses the empty tavern’s
threshold, estimates risk, seeks magickal heat.

Hairy man-gods & risk: disbelief in sky &
land, fear of light, of change, in dreams
nothing is named or divided,
nearing our magickal heat
we carry nothing, oddly shaped, hardly ready

Lone woman’s smile on an empty bench
in Paris, suffers for the world, herself, noone.

Odd shapes & suffering: the silence of paradise,
shimmer & cloud, perfect undulation,
music become bluntly manifest,
unnamed strandy plants misshapen bell leaves
magickal heat superfluous, no dance, no dream.

Lone woman & her smile mistaken for cloud,
for goddess, for answer, simple, too simple, complex.

Undulation & smile: all is calm, all is well,
she’s just smiling, the body is still warm,
change, decay, growth, illusion, beauty,
the pyre is ready, immolation, resurrection,
continuous, it’s always been like this, today, tomorrow—

*


In the dream fragment we had many stones
numerically placed to center &
strengthen our home, to align
it with the willows, to clarify
its message to passing vehicles
through ether & spirit—

Each time a new widow arrived to stay,
there would be only soup & many prayers
for a week, her mourning fresh
drunk into our home’s soil & soul
anchors, another one gained to
our advantage, though none with children allowed—

Taught to sew & handle every weapon,
each widow’s haggish pallor would
rosen forth soon, or sooner, & a
maiden might peak through, even a nymph,
ancients teaching play among the many willows.

*

There can be no lasting bliss in this
mortal life til nearly everything ever known
is gone, til bandits & bastards, ill chance,
custom, indifferent stars & bloated dreams
have thinned one’s sack to remembered
air, fragments of color, forces one
trusts, instructions one keeps but
does not follow—

All is grief. So one grieves. In some way
one always grieves. Grey skies & black suits.
White sheets & lost nights. I’ve watched a
thousand lonely faces on the city train.
Then someone boards with a clutch of
flowers & a small camera. Grief & bliss. Just let go.

What’s left is not death. We still yearn for faces
old & new. For a city on a frayed postcard.
For the frilliest of moments, someone else’s
idea, the marriage bed of one’s secret,
sugar, moonlight, wreaths, parades,
horseback island sunset, meat, & sleep.

There is no lasting bliss now or ever til
nothing matters, & everything too. Til grief
settles into the stain coloring all things.
Til what we share bridges all we have
lost. What I cannot tell you no matter
the reddest of wines nor heatest of touches

dwindles away this sunny afternoon.

*

The wish to disappear along the path
home, down an alley, into a pulse,
into her night. The wish to dance,
duck, maneuver, go, go, go in a damned
new way, if only possible to learn how
from rags of words in vendors’ booths,
to supercede this game, finally, subvert
a rule, fuck a law, perhaps brave enough
too to return, to bring a group out,
to become a leader, a prophet, just long
enough, no, not in love with the power,
yes, in love with crushing it, handing
it round as too often peoples’ lives & dreams
are handed round, exposed for blush &
humiliation til a bowl of anything will
do, & thank you, & thank you, disappear
along the path home but perhaps not
a coward, but an architect, a worker,
builder, leaving blood handprints & nests
of wrappers marking the way, here is your
liberation, here is your undoing, here
is your chance, can you live without their
affirmation of your worth, their assurance
that your shoes & wallet & crooked stance
are all that ever were, that progress is
a verb not a question, that love is not a
question but an act, merely an act?

*

The freaks will never own the world,
I learned this several years ago.
A full moon, despair, bulbs out, story done.

The freaks will never own the world,
we raged in the desert, hope, sex,
spirits, night in neon, dancing, letting go.

The freaks will never own the world,
the rock concert reclamation,
the girls you meet who know less fear.

The freaks will never own the world,
beauty more than blood & shell,
the river too, the old man who still plays the flute.

The freaks will never own the world,
she pointed at the stars, laughed,
watched them flow, I sit here remembering.

The freaks will never own the world,
& you must learn how too, become
the gift you seek, the lights, the language, the love.

*

[for Erika, with love]

Come with me, say yes, here’s the
corridor, there’s the door, tonight
release unwieldy hours in dead places,
tonight fracture tree from disease,
tonight lean into fear, face its black breath,
come with me, say yes, perhaps freedom,
maybe happiness. Dream on starlight til
you burn. Always a choice. Safety or symbiosis.

Perhaps I will go with you, past
ambiguity to the sea, devote a time
to lunar power, to what will press us
open but not scar nor define, toward
dawn the beg for skin gainst hard skin,
I will go with you, learn your rhythms,
forge our bed, friends to shadows & waves,
& the man who plays flute to the scrapping gulls.

No, we shall go together, learning what
to burn down, what to preserve, what to renew,
learning how little is about us, how we love
better two hands clasped, the others pointed
outward, splayed, past safety. We raise
another day, pray another world,
the night pokes us into sunshine, the man who
hunts for scraps of gold. Always more & more to know.

*

Step askew the current pathless confusion,
& fall forth into frequent dream,
where one teaches me to lessen my
knowledge & th’other loves & eludes
me to scratch up my hope—

He laughs at me. Walking in silence for
miles, then the press of his glance,
the ripple of his laugh. I say nothing.
This is my book. I call it “Why?”
The words hold to the pages for now.

She approaches music. Often. Or perhaps it
approaches her. He challenges the book.
She seduces it. Modulates the space
between her pulses, presses my words,
squeezes them for me.

Composing the shell or breaching it?
New language or none? This book
archive of learning or ignorance?
We burn blue fancies at night for
warmth. She dances with the flicking
scraps of gold.

*

To Erika, Montreal dawn

Slowly a garden, eventually the sea,
til a nebula bright, at last a spiny dream—

All is Family. All is Beauty. All that is, flows,
& waters everywhere learn, & dream—

All that is, flows. A flow of desire & curiosity,
flow thinner & brighter, till all is covered,
til naught remains.

Slowly the day, eventually the sun,
til a tree wise, at last a sacred thrust—

You are Family. You are Beauty. You flow always,
& there is lesson, dance, bemusement.

All that is, flows, Colors the lingual myth,
music, the scripture, now a fire, now
nighttime, now a vast roar of stars.

Slowly the night, eventually the bright
goddess, til irregular spasm, at last the noise of love—

We are Family. We are Beauty. We flow, pounding waters,
& there is weirdness, mystery, symbiosis

All that is, flows. Beyond waters,
beyond smoke. Wastes & gardens both burn
bright with beauty.

*

For Erika, incendiary soulmate

To begin again, begin continuously, to learn
how to see full moon always, ocean dawn always,
newly fecund glance always, the moment when
dancesteps become amour always, begin
again, begin continuously, love the spring
butterfly come to save you, may elude
you too, try to catch it, smack at it, run
from it, see what happens, try like many
have before you, stumble forward, try to
make it without your heart—

Dreams & we know each other & I call you
wife & sister & mother & mate, enemy & teacher,

& you call me similar names, & laugh,
& plow through my skin, roar & retreat,

a funky bitch, a carnal friend,
lover made of blood & mud,
feathers & fancies, winter & wine,
teacher with lunar bite,
mother with strumming hunger,
sister with flow & glee,
enemy til the spasm—

mate in joy & grief

To begin again, to begin continuously,
hit the hard, high notes, craft bullets
in the soul, of anguish & blows, somehow
claw & grieve & sing toward emptying the
chamber, avoid the shots, end the making,
yes, it is possible, yes it can begin today,
now, yes, you are good, feel the glowing
sprig of energy within, feel the sacred
mists & vines untouched by him, unharmed
by her, heed lunatics who offer you hope, hope—

Nights we have known each other & I seek your
wisdom embedded in wit, your sardonic teaching heat,

& you gnaw at me to find the absence within
which you can have me, silently, forever,

feisty brew, love spelled out in thorns,
meditation, fasting, peyote, hands bound,
deja vu, ocean waves pouring through an empty house,
dreams end in the violently cried “tighter!”
spells without words without wand without end,
candles large & small fill the whispering chamber,
& we press toward the dawn, toward everything possible—

mate in joy & grief

To begin again again, to begin continuously,
embrace the maybe, let the no the fuck go,
embrace maybe the orphan, half-blind, song shaky,
let the no go, its symphony, its hard hard maraud,
to begin again, tonight, now, become the
painted face of the lost preacher who
flares with joy in fields of sheep & flickers
at pulpits when rarely he joins two hands
in promise, embrace the maybe, let the no
the fuck go, embrace the maybe, watch the butterfly near—

Always we have known each other & made battles
& braved love, wounds, the healer, the healed,

& the one color that is ours, the single star
I bled you, the moment each day you feel me & explode,

water flowing madly over rocks into kissing chasms,
sunshine moments years apart, our book, our dream,
trees perform our unions, pass the words to saplings,
kittens curled, puddles of daylight, you point, I nod,
& again what we are presses outward, teaches others,
midnight our language gathers its myths again,
sunrise, our music, curls into crevices & secrets—

mates, incendiary mates, in joy & grief.

*

For Erika, my mate, my muse

Evening. Symbiosis. She drips blue wax,
a quarter century, press perception,
learn how to see through carnal blindness,
she smolders with the hidden heat of
empty space, see with touch toward her
truth, the rampage in her glance, play
her power, revolve, evolve, fecundity this
universe’s first & best bomb, all else
knowable only by preachers versed in texts
of water, learn how to see through carnal
blindness, see with taste her tapping grief,
feed upon this grief, become this grief as
thus you were conceived & borne, a thread
untwined from her music, unsentimental
seed become kindless fire, a freak, you
abandoned her for a festival years away,
you, squalls & useless limbs then, but
already a weed by religion, fancy, vocation,
passion, furious with your existence, how to
love, how to love, how to love, & why.

The tribe is gathering on a golden hill,
a primal blaze, a stout mirror, chimes of trees,
arrive seeking the wild music, shivers & starlight,
begin in the mystery of everything, rose
tower dusk, onyx flow midst sparks of
dancing, begin in the mystery
of everything, excess of beauty, residua
of explanation. Evening. Symbiosis.
Find a face, together smoke a dream,
immolate, break down, release, rage
til the midnight seduces to cessation, yes,
learn how to see through carnal blindness,
marijuana, opium, peyote, eat a virgin,
feed her what remains, LSD-25, ha ha ha,
trickedya! Wilder music, the beginnings
of a new freedom, to reinvent the world
you must begin everywhere & nowhere, this
universe a jest, a flight, a shimmy,
the tribe is leaving the golden hill, push on
toward the fest, bullets & blood, breast & blindness.

All is maya. Illusion. Art. Play. Perhaps.
Everything ends, & a beat, & all begins again,
miracle. To play one true note. To learn
how. Far now from burbling sunshine
& nowhere near wet willing clarity. All alone.
All suffering. Yes. Everything ends, & a
beat, & all begins again, miracle.
Awake to one missing eye, relieved,
there is no answer. All alone. All suffering.
yes. The past bristles hotly, the future
peddles maps & trinkets. Nights alone
intimate Her soft sound, her breathing,
so away with the preacher’s boo-toy & pah!
to the scientist’s study rag, glints of
Her face in dreams, in texts of water
years deep yet, the blue candle one night
in the nearly-forgotten dwelling, & nearly
see within it the way into carnal blindness,
how to accept, nod, release, nearly there,
but all is grief still. Laughter. More wine.

A life’s anguish. An apex. A dream. No
home yet but your blood & hers in
depthless agony, a shattered alphabet,
strums of kiss, rhythms of twine, nearly
disappearing, damned near nearly, study
the stars when she is gone for messages
she knew not how to leave. Strip down.
Decide. Safety or symbiosis? Freak or
citizen? Mystery or newsprint? Look to
the man who makes butterflies from
fire & pain. Dream of the girl who
sings from texts of water. ‘All is
Family’ he scrawls in your private book.
‘All is Beauty’ you write below his,
watching her dance, a garden, at
first, eventually the sea, til a nebula
bright, at last a strandsy dream,
every tree’s sermon when visited at
pink & gold sunset by sacred elixir, full
moon always, turn on, tune in, drop out.

Recover sight at last & discover yourself
alone in the world. All alone.
All suffering. Yes. Yet something from
the past careens on, still hungering
for a crevice of treasure, a secret
burning city of bliss, symbiosis of
heart blood & bone, pending culmination.
No belief in god or goddess, flow
& stagger blindly, refuse to disappear
along the path home, disavow
nothing, more ferociously with limbs
of light, learning finally to play
one true note, from dreams of
death, approaching the festival
at last, bringing words scrawled
on leaves of mud, gone now the
erotic ladders to nowhere, gone,
all gone, come now to the old language
of fire, neural myths, beyond maya,
no truths, no longer a dream, joy! Fucking joy!

Drip the wax along her back, pools
of warm hope, shapely stains of grief
& bliss, freakish rhymes on her shoulder
blades, the final lines of your private
book, she whispers ‘more,’ but now you
are tongue & tappings, a dozen kisses,
a dozen more, an extra, a few, &
the festival grins back at you, &
all your life’s choices burn on that
golden hill, ‘All is Family,’ you say, ‘All
is Beauty,’ she nods, & she reads to you
from your private book. All alone.
All suffering. Yes. Everything ends, & a
beat, & all begins again. There is
no answer. She smiles at you though you
don’t know how. You smile at her &
begin to listen. The world no longer shadow,
no longer blue fancy. Happiness without limits.
Morning. Resurrection. Morning. Desire.
Slim lashes of flame. The least thought matters.


12-26-2000

***

[Cenacle]

tonight added 6 x 36 Nocturnes, series two, #19-36, these are old poems to me but a wish to identify myself to a forum of strangers, they tell better than i could otherwise what i am, what i've been...i was looking for a muse, looking in cyberspace before it was much acceptable...i was in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, too, one of my favorite human places in the world, deep into many paintings...i was experimenting with the Nocturnes, what were they? how far could they go? we took to each other even as our deepest twining days were still months away...i was mixing them, re-visiting lines and words over and over, it was so much find, to find a manner of singing mine own...