The night gives no hint toward
coming daylight, all sleeps, or
cowers, or prowls. I ready in my
small room to sleep, to dream
of you in your many guises. You
are smiling figure met on a
descending yellow bus, my companion
down flight after flight, my smile
returned for the lilies I give you.
A thousand miles away, really
& I hope long since asleep. Blonde &
pretty & with me always inside
invisible poems, nearing daylight, brushing my heart.
******
ii. Fragment
Eyes shutting near dawn, carrying
nets of extinguishing night into
dream, nocturnal figures briefly
tapped, a claw of words, shards
of blue—
Nights among outlaws & jackals,
the moon revealed a freak if
one runs the whole way with her,
& she too carried along the stream
of trembling wreckage into dream—
Dream-shore nearly reached as
daylight's ordered craft begins
its humming & clicking. Dream an
island, a beast, now both & a
mansion too, a pretty girl, loss,
colorless moon—
******
iii. Fragment
The air is emptying from the
chamber, & night has fled
& fled.
No answers in book or bed.
All is loneliness, the crushing grip,
two mocking hands dull this heart's living bell.
******
iv. For someone. Anyone.
Embrace it all, or watch it thud,
or flutter. The nightlong mist,
wet music for arrival, continuous
arrival, dawn's memory of arrival,
tell me true, colorless moon, love me too?
Let it go, let the living bell within
its cage squeak & groan & roar,
let my breath tumble to daylight
& my blood sizzle with love,
dance, drink, thrash, scratch the
colorless moon from desire's paper sky.
******
v.
Night crumbles into shadows, stumbles,
flees, not even a decent sun today,
more a colorless indifferent light, power
with neither danger nor laughter—
Here watch a wild colt shake wild of damp,
There watch freighters deliver today's news,
today's human feed, today decaying already
in this peaceless dawn—
Who are we? Few among us outlaws or
seekers, trippin' scriptures—
Mostly slaves to loins & guts, herded by fear,
quieted by law—
Who are we? Watching each other, tangled
blindly inside colorless indifferent light—
Night will come again, seep & crawl
& tickle into pockets & alleys, touch
shadow to shadow, deepen a leaf
here, broaden a laugh there, it will come—
The freighters will roar roads sparked
above & before them, the colt will
lick & whinny & commence to dream
simple wanting dreams—
Dreams will flame here & there in
barn & chamber, mansion & shelter,
dreams will wild, gangs of outlaws &
seekers, building, building note by note,
image by image, mystery by mystery,
land which floats, legs which fly, leaves
which talk, earth which dances, world
which shimmies, hopes for free,
agonies which warn, loneliness which
instructs, freedom a grail, love a
pointing finger, memories for the conflagration,
polity for the amateur's stage, anger
the salt, regret the sugar, life the addiction,
childhood the preacher, kindness the guru,
heed night, its sand beneath you, its
ocean caterwauling, its stars pressing,
your heart clawing toward its truths. Change. Release.
******
vi.
Nameless runs of weeds line nameless streets,
fear the sunny claws atwist a stranger's
fingers, observe the law of locked doors &
clutched secrets, hug close to named
streets, sung flowers, stray only with strong
winds. Pock & pattern the holy emptiness within.
Grow wild with tankard, neon rhythm,
with the elixir that hurries, the meal which
thickens, but elude the dangers found too
deeply within, drums of heat, jungles of smoke,
heart revealed, shared rawly. Strums of
starlight, moon several now & sparking
notes, cluster of pink blooms, wilder dance
sans mask, ten thousand songs thrusting
from she-beasts & he-beasts, fingers flaring
glints of sunshine, night expanded & reduced
to a field, no longer a thing of shinelessness,
now a greater magick, & dreams reinvention
of the world, & the threat of numbers broken,
& the old loneliness docile in the dampness.
The water clear, rapidly healthy, fertile
with making & dissipation, & the beasts
drink & feed in the dawn's dreamest
blush, no claws, only murmuring
breezes, tribal communion, no claws,
no doors, no streets. Each weed tapped
with a flick of holiness. Games of
prayer. Flurries of laughter. A birth
for instruction. A death for remembrance.
A band of kisses prepares the music, the rage
of night summoned, unending at last.
******
vii.
Rage of night, she twists between
fingers' dark power & lips' healing
press, she watches shadows coalesce
in her empty bedchamber, her belly
loins feel the rage everywhere, pulse
hard for connection, another's need, or song.
Love a rupture & gestation, she knows
this too well lying in her naked bed,
hungry dreams with teeth, diminishing
days of deceiving scents, two paws
of need, then claws for –letting or lament.
Dream twined to dream in a chamber,
in a home, in a building, not
the TV, nor electric space, rarely
epiphany in slap of thigh on thigh
but come the weaker hours, the clearer
minutes, come the sink within, spectral chorus rises.
A spiny dream one night, a tangle
of stars' heat & Daddy's cancer, she
moans, she twists, her fingers clutch
an ice cream, slam a wriggling mouth,
a scream, a whimper . . . an echo as
another near her remembers too, a mourning, a shift.
The morning cracks through the night,
grimacing & talking, a low howl,
pressing, lifting, she gives her dream-sweat
body to fresh water, to noise & krinkly
cotton, she moves swiftly til the comfort
& the terror let go, let her fucking go.
Rage of night becomes rant of day,
the wizard who made butterflies from
fire now an ordered street, a hustled meal,
a banged elbow, a missed lunch,
a pressure within, building, & building,
she smiles, she glows, the child within clenches dark fists.
******
viii.
Warm breath flows over me from
a universe strange, growling, curious.
Young, like sunshine. Powerful, open kegs
of moonlight. Starlight fierce, tapping. Joy fires
through me, shredding, hurting. I
want to eat her, & her, & you.
A mourning, a shift. Someone green-eyed
thinks of me, mumbles a riddle, an
incantation, wiggles fingers in the northern
rain. A beaver notices. A damp bush
wavers. The wind talks of empty plains.
Two workmen argue with chess pieces. A growl.
Joy fires through me, flaring everywhere,
an unraveling of gold's innocence &
the clock's many lies. Inns favoring outlaws
post news daily, pipes & hookahs now
lit for morning & midnight prayers. Someone
green-eyed embodies the new dance, the ancient
magick, holier music, strums of
starlight, she moves among tribes
hardly cohered, scattering her words
with the fineness of dust. Becoming a
different range of rhythms, higher
colors. Watch her. Becoming the word love.
A mourning, a shift. Days of greater
war, nights of spectral ecstasy.
Someone green-eyed fires through me
as I help build the burning scriptures,
compose the dance to begin the new
dancing, weep, limp, learn how to love & cry.
I want to eat you, & you, & you. Teach
you to teach me of love's mutual gifting,
learn how to give, to receive, to know
your green eyes in both fancy & fright,
serve you at dawn, mugs of fierce starlight,
plates of glowing fruit. Prayers shaped like kisses.
******
ix. "Meditation on the Sea," Artist Unknown,
oil on canvas, 1860s.
A beach strewn with rocks, strewn with men,
strewn with memories. The sea strewn with
none. Lone bench where a man sits thinking,
watching the sea. Watching himself come
to an end. New love. Hurts like always.
Another moment. A red pebble, A blue pebble.
He nods. His suitcoat is blue, his hat canary.
She'd worn a pink gown, a red bonnet.
His heart twists. His memories long for
drowning. Something flares, joy, another diminishes,
a note, diminishing always, a rock, a flame,
no time. No time where the sea is concerned.
Stones scattered on the sand form an
unmade language, untapped tenderness &
brutality. He thinks of her clean skin,
frivolous & carnal her breath while they danced.
A smoke. A steam. A flu. To love one steps back
from the sea. Takes his pebbles, yearns for his note,
back into the world of men & memories, & love's happy abyss.
******
x. for Lisa Marie
What burns in you in beauty,
blue rose in suspended time,
tinkling necklace impossible
because it lifts sadness, fury
in the tips of quiet fingers. Beauty,
suspended time, pending love, twisting cries.
To love one steps into the sea,
blind wisdom aflame, grey sky new
with direction, hustle, renewed
hustle, into the sea, into the
dream, one loves with every door
open, near lingual tingling,
into the sea, one loves, moments
heated jewels, divinity of anguish & electricity.
A buzz of energy as we converge,
clash of blue rose against its
mate, beauty burning, lingual tingling,
fell endless stream tide forehead
face warm & named, your many
trails of light, small pine, full moon crescendo,
All is water, perfect, unknowable,
your eyes stain my heart &
night, every door open, broad buzzing
beauty, freaks of starfall,
water, perfect, unknowable,
buzz of energy til a corrosive
hunger, a roar through the vacuum
of solitude, your eyes, perfect, unknowable,
pulse, pulses, all that is,
pulses, your eyes, dream's crown
& flute, many trails of light,
fullmoon crescendo, a long dress,
a pink cheek, green eyes flavored
by the sun, a bite, a bonding.
You occupy everything, you occupy
everything. My words become
stained with your love, dream's
crown & randy news, dream's
funky beat & delicious solo,
your burning beauty, sky's dream
of blue roses, suspended time
while new love raises war with a cry.
******
xi. Liberation
To build the burning scriptures offer
your several hands, your jungle
of eyes, the brightest steam of your soul;
to burn the burning scriptures use tongue
& thigh, fuel raised from colored dreams
& things lingering more wisp than earth.
Build the burning scriptures with
your love's crown & flute, with ripe
oranges & empty magnum cartridges,
parade the many nights with
Jesus clowns & Buddha slaves, commit
hourly acts of resurrection, pitchers
of laughter. A new dream. A bigger
dream. No longer a dream at all.
All is Family. All is Beauty. Put down
your hands & begin to believe this.
Higher the scriptures burn, the less
of the lie that is You & I, You & I.
Festival now to compose the dance to
begin the new dancing, festival
in desert wind, among low-hung
panting stars, festival to deliver
You from You & I from I, festival of the
burning scriptures, scorched cities, charred pain.
Once meaning glinted from texts of water,
clouds the storybook, sunshine for
thirst, colors everywhere the candies of
playful eyes, clasping hands. Once,
perhaps, a crooked puppy of a day,
but no more. Love now smells
of rising smoke. A new dance, new fire.
Our best words dry, taut, sober,
revealing. Our way now beyond the
known path, into the crackling, into
the murk. Creatures mark us from
every tree, bush, bless, praise, but do not deter.
******
xii. Holiness Rant, part one
Holy something in each moment,
holy step to step, word to word,
the blaze on the turnpike, thrummings
in the woods, every gesture,
every tumble, holy something, whatever
what, a tap, a bomb, a kiss, lights,
shadows on a walkway, holy confusion,
holy bliss, holy silence, the bastards
in numbers, their demons, their fears,
holiness in consumed cities, swishing
meadows, in the brush's gesture of her
smile, greed, goodness, new blood, old bones,
holiness in fingers & claws & fins,
in speeding light & careening heat,
in simple entropy, simple resurrection,
dreams with power beyond armies,
beyond time & wee-leaf conceptions of
reality, of love, holiness into the crackling,
into the murk, this universe a river
of light, infinite currents of music,
& what flows from nowhere to beyond,
when a hand might beg for just another
hand, a simple dance, a quartet of
comforts, something funny, something safe,
holiness unbounded & untaught, unheld,
unhad, unknown, the shine of things
hints, what coalesces, what disperses,
the hints from birds & weeds, from
creatures that pause & sniff to know,
the predator, the pursued, holiness
on the starship, within the flesh, what
polity fears, & thus controls, coronas
of want, secret burning cities of bliss,
the veil crushed, her night revealed,
holiness in the taste & in the suck,
renting the fist, slicing it raw,
because holy something in each moment,
every inch, soil & concrete, roots & missiles,
every inch, every inch, Godd is green,
grows from the ground, every inch,
holiness sprouts or will again soon,
growing the native impulse, only scripture,
serve that which grows & thus prosper,
serve that which creates, that
which inspires, the night, its dreams,
what persists, unnamed, serve the
dance & its dancers, the music &
its creators, alight with love,
aloft with restlessness, holiness, holiness,
all holiness along the trail, call it years
or seasons, eggs or twilights, in every step &
every moment, the wisdom found
in stroking an oak tree, remembrancing
a lost face, a mourn, a smile,
some other place to be gotten to, here
to hereon, then to never, & the day
says 'no direction but home,' & the night
chants 'no direction but home,' & dreams &
ducks say it too, listen to the secret, the
key, the living word, the holiness flushed out, & revealed.
******
xiii. Holiness Rant, part two
All alone, all suffering, yes. Holiness a blank
burst in a plain blue sky, an exception,
a bite leaving neither mark nor advice.
Not a roof nor cooked flesh, not a damp thigh
nor laughing touch, water, gunpowder's warning
to the bandit's trespass, not a king nor a judge.
All alone, all suffering, yes, & holiness stamps
the earth & nods, scorches the flags,
points to the mountain, the woods, the sea.
Holiness etches the cactus as model, flocks
of geese as example, the paintbrush hung
dripping with red oil, the dance in hungry flight.
All alone, all suffering, yes. Fuck yes &
shit yes & bullet yes & hate yes.
Camps of smoke. Rooms of moaning darkness.
A world fat with miracle & woe. Violation
of the tender, resurrection of the crushed.
Holiness nods, winks, licks your sugar, limps on.
All alone, all suffering, yes, & holiness
declaims 'no direction but home,' & holiness
barks 'no direction but home,' & hands
you basket of feathers & shells, oak leaves
& photos of insisting beauty, lyre & flicker
of old dream, gourd of water, starshine, snowflake.
All alone, all suffering, yes, til some
things you surrender & others you forgive.
Holiness with the flattened ears &
laidback fur, further along the path.
Offering you the least beginnings of a
joined scripture. A test, a dusk, a study, a star.
All alone, all suffering, yes. Holiness
in a flash of blonde hair, a hum of
green eyes. Obscure endings in the jungle,
ideas twisted open & freed in occasional
desert rages. Surrender some things,
forgive others. Give a fuck. Give two.
******
xiv. Brotherhood of the Fire
Brotherhood of fire, of the leaf, of the molecule,
bee-sting of mortality, sting of identity, sting
of empty hands, dreamless days, press a freak
for news of another & three more appear
with silence, smiles, this way to the communal
burn, the embedded soup, accelerated laughter.
Sparks of dragonfly, glints of a forgotten beast,
moss for the star-skinned bare foot, the day
a bee-sting of rules fled now, watch. Hurry,
now, through the dead trunks, smoldering
pine needles. Molecule & leaf summon
passing vehicles through ether & spirit. Hurry.
Surrender some things, forgive others.
Fern & moss, pattern & smoke of a
language needed, nearing. Past midnight
a beat. A beat. Now many. Ideas twisted
open & freed in nightly forest ecstasies
of squeak & crunch. Spark. Glint. Sting.
Brotherhood of fire, of the leaf, of the molecule,
hands broach hands, breach of an old, hard
wall, bring the water next morning,
bring the pipe, bring the words. Wounds.
Laughter. Stream of souls passing through.
Give a fuck. Give two.
A language needed, nearing. A night scratched,
stressed, brotherhood welded by the flame,
the leaf, the molecule, a beat, a beat,
now many. Sting of the next dream, new day.
Surrender some things, forgive others. Ash
covers the world, a blanket, sleep, oblivion.
******
xv. Elevation
What covers the world, a wish to learn,
shapes & patterns, bones, buzz, flesh,
a word. Observing, aloft, starship buckled
by stones of air, a fever to know, what
manner of thrummings make the song? What
feast of music sings the world?
Cities & villages, speckles of reflection, busily
asleep by day, half-lit, freakish at night.
A wish to learn quarrels a wish for safety.
Observing, aloft, knowing any man's midnight
equation can be bludgeoned by another who
drinks the molecule, smokes the leaf.
Trees cover the earth, blood-heavy, green
the power of living earth. Wishing to learn,
to reckon leaf & bud, to understand the
mountains below: you do not understand
the mountains below. Observing, aloft,
now obscured by smoke of freedom. Floating dew.
Snow, hurricanoe, sleep. Monument,
bonfire, dust. Festival, swamp, blueberry.
Decay, dawn. Entropy. Resurrection. A wish
to learn how to learn, to reckon rightly
what one knows, reckon the shadows
within, reckon the shadows below.
Surrender some things, forgive others.
Observing, aloft, a wish to learn,
what manner of thrummings make the song?
What feast of music sings the world?
What remains up here as this starship
descends? Which ties to preserve?
Which ties to unclasp? A wish to learn
quarrels bliss's unnamed splatter. You do
not need to understand bliss. Just surrender
some things, forgive others. The starship
passes your wish to learn into the approaching
blind eye of water. Thrummings. A kiss. Lights.
Holiness. Descending. Step in.
******
xvi. Burning Man 2001,
Black Rock City, NV (first of five)
Beyond men, the mountains. Beyond mountains,
dream, music, wings without body, nothing
named or divided. The fierce, faded blue sky
by day, spangle & spectacle of stars by
night. The high beyond fingers & words.
The high beyond mountains & men.
High beyond meaning. Where the power raised
arrives, breathes slower, roars to rest. Delight
in the stain of the last pink bloom. Pulsing
lawn, where the castles of history will
lastly tumble. High beyond path, beyond gleam,
beyond way. Sum of two pine & a shell revealed.
******
xvii. Burning Man 2001,
Black Rock City, NV (second of five)
[for Claudia]
Observe what emerges, what disappears:
The road behind us, railed & roofed—
Our hearts encased in music, now bludgeoned, now free—
The fear in holding hands, in letting go, in grasping
the beams—
One hungry ecstatic matter to the next:
I fell from the bridge. You followed.
I danced & made music. You quietly called it Art.
My river tightened & shattered. You stayed near. You sang.
No direction but home:
By memory, by turning leaf, by tingling wound.
By the thousand notes of flail, the thousand freaks of hope.
A gardened soul. Call it omniana. Call it chance. Call
it intent. Call it love.
Trust the universe not because it is safe
but because it is home:
Home. High, low. Death, life. Love, silence.
Home. Breed. Suffer. Name a star. Bleed.
Home. In the swamps of the cities. Brood. Decay.
Holiness unbound & untaught, holiness
hangs in juicy gourds from trees.
Holiness pounds & presses. I love you.
Holiness flakes & flames. We can never be too high.
Holiness is mine. You are mine. We belong to everything.
What emerges. What disappears.
Hand stroking hand, fiercest thing in the world.
Heart unveiling to heart. Laughter. Scorching.
Be wild. Be the world. Release. Jump!
******
xviii. Burning Man 2001,
Black Rock City, NV (third of five)
[for Ernie]
How to live, how to live, how to live,
& why. You ache & need soup.
How to build a home, build a heart,
build a man. Build faster than tears.
How to say yes to everything, every last
thing. Yes. Yes. Yes to you?
Begin in the mystery of what you
are. Your heavy emptiness. The forests,
the mountains, the does & vermin within
this heaviness. Begin with your hidden
dreams, your unconfessed sun & stars.
You are as primal as fire. Language of the peak.
A different path. A different way.
Dreams many & priceless as dandelions.
Howl. Howl! You wish to be clean as
the earth, steep as the ocean, like
the flames a baby watches dance in
the palms of her hands. Howl!
Love. Only love. There is only love.
Force of the cosmos, thrust of
the stars, energy eating energy eating
energy, love. Only love. There is only
love. You know this in your dreamless
fright. Say it. Love. There is only love.
The rest falls away. Still you ask:
How to live? How to live? How to live
& why? Build a house? Build a heart?
Build a man. Perhaps tomorrow. Perhaps
never. Perhaps you are the catalyst you
seek. Perhaps tonight you will sleep. Dandelion dreams