The big dog blues chapter (revised again)

[mnaz]

In the beginning was rock and vibrations of rock, time signature riddle, middle of infinitude, steady bedrock rumbling, the big dog woofer grumbling, rolling big bass lumbering, skull-pounding dread. Yea verily, reverb careens from the valley of darkness, psalms of the heavy rain forth from walnut towers consumed in cataclysms of holy rolling boom, rattle the room, can’t place myself in space, holy reformations on the face of the deep. The word was dub, and the word was with dub, the monster massive slowed an octave low, black edge of sunshine, the rootsman on a big beat earth, rattling in star-raked canyons, across plains. It came quietly at first; whole galaxies in flickering pins on the firmament painted constellations on the black, and no sound is found in black except boom. How much sound is a supernova? Hear it with your own eyes, reverberation of flung orbits, enormity of the smallest secret, the force, the source, maker of nebulae where prophets flail, earthquakes and trembling if you will, angels and devils, soaring temples immortal, erode in tricks of rain.

He met a parallel lover. She didn’t matter, didn’t do matter at all. He reached for her hand and space inverted with a pop. Heavens blew out, hurtled out at terrible speed, out into something like nothing or something like that, and black space blackens. Clutch onto something. Crucial mass is five atoms per meter. Anything less and it runs to ether; anything more, the yo-yo sky. Blowout, or rubber band stars? Which came first? Action, or reaction? Bang, or implosion? Creator, or creation? Matter, or space? Dark matter or light? Warrior or the fight? We pictured we at the center of things, and we are, the center of careening axes as it were, and smack in the middle the doldrums, sun kissed fronds, unspecified nectar.

In the beginning was no beginning. It was dark, maybe light, shade of a garden unknown, and the universe was happy, no way to know. In the beginning was no time, until the big bang apple. And hands began to turn, winds hissed, deities and cosmic wreckage hurtled out, rock began to grind and magma rise, planets began to weather and spin myths of space, galactic spiral, and curious unleashed the spinning hands. Good and evil surfaced in hideous gorgons on billowing skies. Wind is emotion, spun itself into oceans, the desolate mother sea on gothic granite eons, thrown crystal plumes on gargoyle crags, tatters and smithereens, mountains dismantled one grain at a time, the animal truth of annihilation, dark without edges, calm as seen from above, staring up at the overpass, and you hope sparkle won’t toss a lit cigarette on your city.

You reach deeper. Your stage reeks of musty industrial revolution; hardwood curled and gray, bare lath in jagged plaster holes, and smells of seaports; the muscular odor of fish markets and tobacco, a grimy, ancient sort of gumbo, and a horn blares two blocks down. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Everyone got a come to Jesus moment, and blues fill in black corners of space; one note clipped, one full of flavor, that’s how it start, and new constitutions shoot from a fret board. He can wail that 4/4 setup. Sorry Tchaikovsky, Wagner; you got genius in that cannon fire but we need the smoking volcano throb, soul food shimmy shake quake. The gospel. Starts with nothing, bad luck, bad moon, the first note.

Some cats in Waterhouse J.A. picked up a guitar, found the mother ocean too, heartbreak and vision, a new religion, and the one-drop roots got a three on it doing 4/4 time, guitars in a trance, bass player outta hand, stranger in a strange land, Sultan of rhythm, the backwards blues. You could punch Babylon square in the mouth. Not sure what the streets thought of their creation. Not sure what the rock thought of space, or space, of rock. Not sure what Elvis thought of Vegas, air conditioner hummin’ a swelter; you can’t listen to that. Get the mic, turn it on, we got licks already splittin’ town, and a jam is a jam. He was no Memphis Slim but he dug the roots, and that record bumped full and slow.

Not sure how the rock fit space, or space enfolded rock. Space had a bounce to it, aside from a tomb-like starship rumble. All the watering holes up there had some kind of wang wang beehive beebop, shrill as a Kate Pierson yodel, and she drove a Plymouth Satellite faster than light. We got meters bouncing on vacuum tubes, needle in a groove, tape loop hula hoop analog twang, a teenage Venus dancing to bomb shelter bombshell blues, and Bond, James Bond in turtleneck shoes, polyester ruse. She’s gone like that, out beyond Texas and Mars, or one of the seven stars. He got a pad there; peeks out of a beehive. And meteors turned him into a werewolf; order your collection of grainy teen surf hippie cowboy drug films, only $19.95. A palm sways in the canyon, cloudy van, yellow brick road, haze drifting up the coast, fat tires and fat Cragar mags headed for huevos rancheros. Roll ‘em, fat tracks, board wax. Oh no, linty pockets, in God we trusted; the President’s fat budget is busted.

The Fenders twang and surf between B-movie epics, zip by planets like a Jetsons bubble car; the meta-galactic fantasia. But the road also finds a more subdued rootless knowledge, a more heavyweight flight, a world of highways, junctions and rails and trails, the blue shadings. Prospects are better on the far side, and the guru is as restless as you. Sri Runovahyondah. Camped in the hills you had many conversations; he came down from the wildflowers and bench country for a plate of beans, but the answer was always the same, and soft dub thunder envelops the drab ridges. No choice but to ride it like a train whistle out of Texas. No use for conversation but to outrun it. Redemption is there, he swears; he’s not out far enough; next town, next town.

And blue begat bop, gone smoke rings, three beats past syncopation, no hesitation levitation, prosody twisted in the crook of his fisted bey-rey, and sax go berserk and stars screech, gone to a better place, infinity of swerve, wailed in the key of three feet off- the- floor. Street noise drifted in; he paused in a split-second planetary epoch, gathered himself in smoke, then all quiet rhythm and blow, lost in orbital swirl. His eyes were on the moon, vagabond moon, and when your city is gone, you are the blues on a smoldering stoop, picking a smoldering trance, the last simmering summer, in all its rich, full-bodied smoke flavor, the pulse of it, and the notes drift and hang. Nothing else like it.

[SmileGRL]

"He reached for her hand and space inverted with a pop"

love this line

[mnaz]

thanks, Smile. that's one of my faves too.

i'm outta control with all this prosetry! ha.

[SmileGRL]

let those prose-trees grow!

[stilltrucking]

don't know how to say it so it would make sense
like this
You made my ears bleed
it rocked so hard I had to turn my speakers down
I can hear your prosetry
with my eyes.

[mnaz]

Thanks Jack. Tweaked it a bit. Like it better now. It's one of those careening patchworks of poems stitched together. Actually ten of them in the mix here...

[stilltrucking]

Synesthesia and the geology of rock and roll.