The Millennial Artist's Survival Guide

[Cenacle]

There is a secret joy amongst these
times, a within's within, a known
and speckled spectral thing, an exploding
blare & swoop from between our dreams,
a series of coded midnight shadows,
glyphs taut with our best laughter, all cosmos,
we are all cosmos, without & within.
We are all cosmos. We are all careening.
We need to begin now, trade into ecstasy,
we are beginning now. Always beginning now.

***

Begin now. Tell the truth. How fear
so often drops the artist in flight!
Begin now. Tell the truth. There is
more to this cool night than a spasm
chased, a spasm caught; uncapped and
hard, caught and had. Tell the truth,
begin now, our lives are thin and
dry yet still we're ready to rise,
our best thoughts scattered angels ready
to collect & make new godds, new Art.

***

But how to rise? how to make? thin and
dry, the ground tracked with dull diamonds,
yesterdays, the air full of dead dawns,
dreams, godds beyond the next galaxy
slowing noone's tears. Learn to steer.
Godds buried in pointed buildings
& fading volumes diminish noone's fears.
Days the undirected ships & dreams
revelations of continuous crashings.
Shut off the lights. Smile. Undress. Crash again.

***

Morning again. Secret joys amongst these
times. Within's within: is your Art
necessary? Study today secretly, from
a distance a thousand miles up or a
thousand miles far. What are you to
the lesser gestures of breeze? What is
your Art to that hillside coven
of oaks or that grove of ravens?
Bury your pen. Become a fountain
of blank sheets. Empty. Evaluate.

***

Another day, pinkcheeked & whispering,
laughter inside fat rays of light,
all is sunlight today, do you follow?
(Secret joy. Within's within.)
Follow your sun. Today it's all yours.
When does today begin? Can it possibly
end? Follow your sun. It's always been
there. Become a blank sheet covered
in fountains. Blow ever higher. Trust.
(We are all cosmos. We are careening.)

***

OK. Tell of secret joys. Sing of within's
within. More drums, more dancers,
more bonfires. We're all masters of
knowing now. We all can fly.
A kiss. A tab. A cold and sweet blue dusk.
The how is irrelevant. Practice undifferentiation.
Watch us name molecules. Watch us
paint with supernovas. Recognize
Godd = Art = I = Art = Godd = I.
Time will stop. Time will go. Just watch.

***

A kiss. A tab. A cold and sweet blue dusk.
A full moon. Handfuls of stars. Roused spirits.
A long, sky-tending tree, leafless, several scattered
through the autumn wind. Ready? No? Go!
Go into the flow. It's past midnight now.
Time for seeking vampires & scribbling zombies.
A whole town of them. Go. Go into the flow.
Two kisses. Two tabs. Longlegged blue dusk,
cold and sweet, draped over midnight.
Brick buildings full of gunshots. Welcome to ZombieTown.

***

Let's not stay, for here we can only
do this, not that, preach apologies
for the night, its vampires & scribbling
zombies, but really, are we doing
all we can? Listen to me. I'm in giggling
pieces by now. Are you doing all you can?
Listen to me. I preach to occasional dogs
& flayed mathematicians. Listen to me.
Are you doing all you can? The wind is
rising higher. Don't you want to ride it anymore?

***

Who are you? Are you the eyes
of the world? I mean: Who are you?
Ready? No? Who are you? There's little
left here but lights & purple fruit.
I'll help you by leaving. I'll teach
you how to evanesce. I'll recount
my greatest times of laughter, the
nights when I danced & died.
But I'll leave in one way or another.
I am time itself. I exist until you no longer need me.

***

Something's about to happen. A net
cast into black waters is caught &
dragged down. Something's about to happen.
a jagged formation of jets passes
over a rousing herd of buffalo.
Something's about to happen. Beyond
the book's talkings & the blinking
boxes of diminutive noise. Something's
about to happen. The anxious buzzing's
passing from our dreams to our limbs.

***

Secret joy. Within's within. Spectral
illuminations available everywhere.
Beware. Be aware. Lunch-counters.
Swinging dives. Graveyards where
vampires meet & breed. Where zombies
chuckle & scribble. Beware &
be aware. Your flood isn't receding,
is it? You're not diminishing.
The anxious buzzing is your music,
song beyond songs, beyond words & notes.

***

Become a virgin. Again. Reinvent &
reinvent & reinvent. I am you
& you are me & we are the world
beyond eyes. Secret joy. Sniff the air.
Within's within. See your heart.
A kiss. A tab. There is no blue dusk.
Become a virgin. Again. We've got to
huddle closer together. We've got to
remember how. The secret joy is today's
open hands. The secret joy is always beginning NOW.

November 8, 1998
Malden, MA.

[Cenacle]

I wrote this poem over the course of a long night when I lived north of Boston, Massachusetts (US). I was at a coffee house with some notes, had a long ride home, on a couple of subway trains, and a long walk from the second of these, part of it through a 17th century graveyard. The notes were ones I had made while experiencing a number of entheogenic experiences, and I wanted to gather them into a long piece. This was the result; it returns to me good memories of learning how to write poems in a deeper, more meaningful way...

[Arcadia]

I didn't eat entheogenic substances on november 1998, but I was very sad, angry and stressed and at the same time living in some way in a sort of alterate state of conscious at that time. I enjoyed your poems! Thanks for sharing!!!
saludos,

Arcadia

[stilltrucking]

we are all cosmos, without & within.

!!!

I was trying to express that when I wrote this.

My mind is balanced on a point in space-time where within and without intersect.

http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=7651


“Wherever I go a poet has been there first” Freud


I wasted my entheogenic experiences reading Nietzsche & Freud
and copulating with a black widow spider
It has left me naked to myself with nowhere to hide..

Thank you for posting.
I know nothing about poetry
Except it opens me to myself

sorry about the ramble but that is what happens when I read a poem that I like a lot.

[Cenacle]

thank you, stilltruckin, i think i respond the same way to art that 'whelms me