xix. Burning Man 2001,
Black Rock City, NV
(fourth of five)
[for Aspen]
I hang from this sky of darkness,
feeding inside my globe of light,
waiting for your approach, your hand,
your claw, your beauteous thrust, thunder—
Perhaps this is your fate, your mission,
the meaning you need, approaching me,
what you do for your godd & your grub,
approach me, fueled by tumbles & chance—
And I approach you too though I do not
move. I approach you through butterflies of
sunshine though I do not move. I approach
you while waiting for how you will dream me next.
How you will dream me next beyond thought.
Beyond fame & delight. You dream my better
juice is finally high. Bang! A new name.
Bang! A clear song. Bang! Drums & luck.
We make Art because we have forgotten
how to tell the truth. We make Art
because the night's starry cool tells
us little we wish to know. We make Art cuz there's little else left.
Now you are finally here, your accelerating
light, drown me, flood me, make me anew.
Teach me again to make Art, to tell the truth.
Teach me again the one true note, the collision, the way, the end.
******
xx. Burning Man 2001,
Black Rock City, NV
(fifth of five)
[for Devin]
Here a staying music. Here a shimmering
permanence. But I do not stay.
I leap along, water, consciousness,
& dreams. I hurry sometimes like I
have somewhere to go. Something to do
with blood, tribe, necessity. Danger.
There is neither necessity nor danger.
I know because I hear laughter.
Some of it mine, some the bumps &
whorls of bush & soil as I land,
nearly stay, careen again, open-fingered, close-fisted,
thrust forward. Propel my godd. Electricity. Fear. Love me.
Staying music. Shimmering permanence.
My heart is spacious within, I feel
its news in waves of color, its phalanx
of spirits, its governance I receive as
song in the silence of my flights.
What am I? Am I bigger than the world?
There is no world. My flights in
their zenith show me this. From a
thousand clouds high I am nearly ready
to release possession of what I can no
longer see, what never is or was. Nearly
ready, I feel the descent again. Love me always.
Staying music, shimmering permanence, will
I need to tumble bloody into my coming
arrival? Will my arrival taste of soil
or sky? There is no world. Touch me.
There is no world. My breast & bones cry out.
There is no world. Yet I am wet & raw
with something. Wet & raw & nothing
can love me like my own touch,
my own breath, my own dreams.
Staying music. Shimmering permanence.
There is no world. I will learn to wield
it better by century, by flame. Bursting, arriving, I will learn.
******
xxi. Rainy World (for Lisa Marie)
Pulsing from the stain of the last pink bloom,
a step forward, a dozen, a hundred,
& will there ever be another? She looks
at me, blazing spikes of youth, looks at me,
in one hand a cup of fur, in the other
a lightless quest. She wiggles. Expects.
Are you the stain? Am I the bloom? Who pulses
whom? Hold your eyes holding mine, teach
me again, the one true note, the collision,
the way, the end. Butterflies from fire
alight your dress, teach me. Praise me.
The sky has washed the world again tonight.
I am the stain. You are the bloom. We
cruise toward wetter, pinker places.
We scream & collide. We laugh. Sometimes
you are my muse, sometimes you
are my girl. Teach me the true note,
the broken harness, the moaning sea,
the end achieved in each pink bloom,
seed, gestation, maturity, stain.
Ecstasy & grief, you bite my thigh.
You push me down. You have me,
then something more. My breast & bones
cry out. All which ever was, you are.
We are the bloom, become the stain,
a carnal thrust, then something more.
Bones burned for healing. Breast crushed
to punish time. The smack & soot
of hands on skin, words grunted, the
whispers of the nearly lost, barely won.
A step forward, a dozen, a hundred
more. She sleeps again, sans wiggle,
sans fear. I sang her to dream with
my feather on her chest. Black ink,
rough blood. A butterfly traced on each breast,
alive, aflame, breathing. A stain. Abloom.
******
xxii. Hunger (for Lisa Marie)
I think past your throbbing mouth
into the skulls & clouds of your
many past nights, the pain &
its echoes & what remains still
within your clear young skin, touch
along blindly, a manless forest, a bulleted
dream, within you, within's within,
that I may know the crinkles in your
breath, your tremors, your toes.
Kisses of light, kisses of water, kisses of sound,
a glee in the way you stroke your damp
morning hair, a tremble as the hunger
in your voice thickens bluntly, a mystery
that I know you at all, a nod that I
barely do, a laugh as you squirm in
grass, bubblegum, flaring dirty ditties,
learning when to wear eyeglasses, & when
to take them off, snarl with heavy love.
You've known none like me. I'll be your first
& last. We know each other already in
dreams & silence. We met first in the
bulleted dream, fucked without names
midst angels & coyotes, each bite, each
scratch, a presentiment of some canyon
to come, some cactus tavern barstool,
some moony yowling night when
we shatter & seal, fall, pierce & release.
A coming stumble into the night, with
open hands, a wider sky, deeper magick,
festival of movement, all creation
in motion, we will attend & study,
but not rule, wiggle within the
music, within's within, hunger,
hunger's hunger, butterflies from
starlight, stay near me, girl, goddess,
stay, sing. Howl. Hurt. Heal.
Tonight I twist, & sit alone & think
of you. The wild blooms-to-be in your
hair. The laughing bloodfucks to come.
In the canyon & naked we'll scream
of the past, count its echoes, bury
what remains. Bury the bulleted dream,
fill our water bottles. Sleep soundless &
twined, til morning accelerates to hunger,
& evening evolves to a medicine called love.
******
xxiii. Clouds & Trees (for Lisa Marie)
Teach me to look elsewhere, beloved,
through clouds, between trees, into &
through & beyond, the beauty of water-sliced
rock, the balance of weightless things
that buzz & float. Teach me to see
feelingfully into the world's skein of hope & decay.
What feast of music sings the world?
Its hungers tremble up leaf to leaf toward
the puffy blue sky, wet watching sky, &
I wish to watch you watching, see you
trace an oak leaf's tips, what music douses
your skin? What roots, what tendrils, drip from your reply?
Teach me. Teach me. Conjure between us
a kiss, an art, a way. Conjure a meaning
raw with beauty, a lash against every
pressing hide of control. Dream of the sunshine
you will suck from me in later nights.
The howl of angels & coyotes you've already known.
A lightless quest, beloved, a tide ever
higher, a tree of rivers the blazing
blood of the world, the pink clouds
of want, the golden ones of power,
the white ones of mystery, the black
ones of freedom. Teach me, beloved.
Between us ever a brave book of
blank pages, between us a thrust
& beat you are teaching me. Between
us corrosion, invention, hustle from
the past, grunts five thousand miles
loud. Lick & listen.
To look elsewhere, through crown &
cosmos, look newly, with branches
for eyes, leaves for words, roots for
memory. What floats, what shines, what
passes, what falls. A kiss, an art, a way.
Teach me til I learn how to learn. Feel the world & know.
******
xxiv. Fervor & Fuel (for Lisa Marie)
Trailing memories into the moony
desert, emptying into the swept
wooden shrine, tall candles, a slow
pilgrim, his dream wagging with feathers
at the heart of the world, I ask him
where She is, he says "you know nothing
but love. pray. don't run." I walk on,
now, still memories, always, he calls "She
is teaching you to look elsewhere, find her!"
I say "to reinvent the world you must begin
everywhere & nowhere" but he does not hear
me. Nothing left now but fuel & fervor. Nothing left but love.
******
xxv. Bright Pink Lights (for Lisa Marie)
To reinvent the world you must begin
everywhere & nowhere, pursue into
alleys, into bright furies, pursue
faith, trust, & passion. Admire a
woman's leg & think: Art. Challenge the gun
& the bully, think for yourself, question
crown & cosmos, accept lash & praise with
balance & deflection, think ever of a
loved one beneath her covers, growling
with want & love, pitch bravely into
doubt's strong, mad face, understand
the hustle of both sugar & maya:
No direction but home. No direction but home.
To reinvent the world you must begin
now. Never. Always. Look elsewhere,
count your fingers, begin. Beyond the waters
without, beyond the smoke within.
Beyond wastes & gardens both burning bright
with beauty. Somewhere the bright pink lights
absolutely sing with your beloved's dreams.
To reinvent the world you must
imagine no world at all, total
absence of this life's grease & goo,
no moan for the newly born nor
tremble for who & what passes on,
nor wordless breath that anything,
anywhere exists at all. Midst the wars
for nothing & the raw days of
suffering, a glimmer. A moment of
green clarity. Not a song, not even
a strum, but still listen to the air
as she passes by. A hum. Confess it:
a hunger among the irony & the fear.
Somewhere the bright pink lights
absolutely sing with your beloved's dreams,
dreams not of crown nor cosmos,
dreams of twist & twining, of kissing
& finally having her own, tongueless pebbles
in the sky, no longer chasing or falling.
******
xxvi. Wastes & Gardens (for Lisa Marie)
Wastes & gardens, tumble into the silence,
hunger for a pressing warmth, hungry now,
pink leaves & sour berries, a pipeful distilled
& puffed at sea's edge, smoke, shadows,
wastes & gardens, fingers hooked among fingers,
"I miss you," she said. "I love you more every
day, in the twistingmost freaks of my dreams,
the old ones I've told you many times about."
Wastes & gardens, swarming flames across
the mind, daylight's bastards smile too, smile
pretty, warn, hug, preach. The moon is an
always new ribbon between us, my love, azure,
indigo, scarlet. Nothing changes today.
Azure, indigo, scarlet. Harder steam. Climbing.
Wonder & love are faiths, not facts.
Steer your life's course by the page or
by the flicker.
Wastes & gardens, nothing left but a forge
& a memory. How hope rolls on through
darkness, through worse. A field of butterflies
& brambles. Naked, hurt, hurrying, keep
choosing, keep turning leaf to leaf, flake to flake,
kiss by kiss. Leap & stumble. Plain & golden.
******
xxvii. Holiness Rant, part three [fugue]
Wage Beauty. Watch her from afar, an arched
torso in a lit vault, a memory, a dream,
call a word to her of what's to come:
Wage Beauty. Strum your silence, listen, is it restless,
does it smolder? Who is holy if not you?
What is holy if not all?
Wage Beauty. Between the bricks, among the lights,
a something. A song. A something. Hurry along
to catch your companions. Or don't. Think:
Wage Beauty. Not in the glimmer of a shoulder,
something else. The stillness & power of a trunk.
The leaves that vibrate. The mysteries which persist.
Wage Beauty. Midst vengeance & jihad, money & mania,
a throb in your wrist. A hum behind your eyes.
A holiness in your veins. What is holy if not all?
Wage Beauty. Wage Music. Wage Yourself.
Wage Hunger & its filling. Wage Family & its teeth.
Wage Love. Strip raw tonight. Wage Something.
******
xxviii. Holiness Rant, part four
New blood hurries old bones along, in leaf
& man, storm & art, every field east
& west liquid with movement, squeak unknowing
of the wrinkle, spasm become suckle,
hurrying leaf, dragging grief, a cane,
a softball, a veil, a tremble, a shriek.
The bitching gnaw. The holiness of need.
New blood. Old bones. A dead brother recalled
in a dream, soft again, deaf, blunt. Beauty
without the bruise of grief. Hurrying together
in a new world, his blood still new, my bones
still older. Hurrying without history's scrape.
We conclude in a park where old men sleep
& piss. Tepid bones, dead blood. I lose him
again, & always, but for the claw of knotted sand,
but for the name, but for the magick. What is
holy if not all? Some sleep with needles.
Some sleep in trash. No blood. No bones.
In leaf & man, storm & art, some frenzy,
some jitter, perhaps a wall of steel windows,
perhaps a dance, a jug, a garnished thigh,
perhaps a curtain of gold, a muffled
byway, she rattles my blood, rocks my bones,
a flourish of curves, riddles & upset,
A greater magick, anguish & electricity,
a power visible in my dreams, among
my prayers, the city become a carriage,
become a hearse, become a woman
I'll wed, become a pen, a song, immolation,
a finger the child I was waved at stars,
new blood, new bones. Always. New blood,
new bones. Flourishes of war & agony
no preacher may sum & nod. Quiet dissolution
while the kings clutch maps, while everything
silently burns. Despair the expanding mold
midst crowds of clutching flags, pairs of crushing thighs.
******
xxix. Homesickness (for Lisa Marie)
A passion for you. A carwreck ending my
life. Perhaps.
Are you an instrument or are you a hand?
Are you a mind or are you a salute?
Are you discrimination or are you capitulation?
Think for yourself. Question all. Be prepared
for the next day, & its probing night.
Homesickness, my love. Fields passed in a car,
perhaps corn, perhaps tobacco.
What are you afraid to smoke?
What are you afraid to say?
What do you fear is to come?
When the world opens, anew, sheds its tickings
& its kings, what will you see?
Give both hands. Shed a life's worth of books &
memories, but a few. Hurry. With care.
A passion for you. Beyond babies, beyond
dreams. A howling in an empty canyon.
This is my mate. She is far. She is mine.
Homesickness, my love. For a barn of toys,
a father's lap. Hide-and-seek. Faces.
What persists from your dreams, shapes them?
What of you is not tired nor beaten?
Can you mark the last day a thrill occurred?
Can you sniff the air & sense coming of
the next?
A passion for you. An old car, a soft radio,
a book on mushrooms. A girl's teasing laugh.
What hopes continue to broaden outward?
What old memories stay, begin to make a life?
What years in your company shall be lengthless
with joy?
What melody you hum I've always heard,
always known?
Homesickness, my love. For a world to come, still a
dream, still a babe.
For a world fanged for survival,
soft for enduring love.
For a world among trees & buzzing,
a world awled in muddy rock.
For a world in the shadow of your
shoulders, slant of your gaze.
For a world, tonight, still growling
for birth, pressed on by homesickness,
by the hand I wish to be, the instrument I love to wield.
******
xxx.
To believe nothing. To believe everything.
Eventually devolve to a seed, a hook,
a melody. A staying touch. To an afternoon shine
along a stretch of earth. A voice that
keeps talking—please!—keep talking.
A good enough called God.
If lucky, a god that opens wide in flames.
******
xxxi. War (for Lisa Marie)
A howl opens to sunshine, muddy sky
split, fade into the fierce, music
unending, through the night, the killing
kind, the king's pattern for sparks
& blood, for a crimson vengeance, a building
pry into the guts of stars & earth.
Douse the burning scriptures. Where
the sparrows flap & bathe, toss in
the crown & its sparks & its plans.
We belong to the world, it may yet
heal us as a father tows his screaming
child from a broken toy, a rabid pet.
Surrender some things, forgive others.
There is no world. There is only love.
The king's conflagration need not burn
the air. Warriors may stow their flags
& puff thoughtfully together. There is no world.
There is only love. Prove it otherwise.
Reckon the myths of lost gardens &
pending wastes. Reckon the preachers
who speak all of melting worlds but nothing
of glowing moments. Reckon the butterfly
in repose, slice of buzz, now awing through
a pair of blonde girls posing as oaks.
Reckon the breast which once fed you &
the cosmos which feeds all. Reckon
the blind day when you will feed the cosmos
in return. Yet today you are still hungrier
than the world. Today your hands still
sway with music. You still love with strange glee.
The howl is yours, today, to release
with wrath or ecstasy. Your choice
to join the world's making or submit to
the king's frigid rage. To fill the cup
deeper, pass it wider around. To summon
aches & griefs toward new plantings & pulsing starflight.
******
xxxii. Holiness Rant, part five
Tonight there seems little left,
hardly worth dividing between
two friends, lovers fading, the gentle
tremble of obscurity, little left
but to wield a pen & remember some
old song, some gone bed, some other day's
stiff flag, holy something in every
moment, o yes, the jitter of belief,
the parade of fierce, the curve
that mattered, the pink more than
a thought or its girl, no, she dreamed
reinvention of the world & I listened,
a rampage, a gleam, a way. I listened.
I still wish to listen, to tangle tails
with the flecks & hungry gold of who
that boy was, as he listened, he watched,
he saw her approach music, heard
her sing from texts of water.
He listened. All alone, all suffering,
yes. I listened. When the bombs
neared, I learned to dance. When she
lit off into life's long flight, I learned
to groove. When came time to kiss &
burn my gurus, I grieved. All is grief.
So one grieves. Now tonight I wonder:
what can be left? I wonder.
I listen. Holy something in every moment.
New blood still hurries my old bones
along. I know not why. We freaks
will never own the world.
Too busy chasing grooves into rabbit
holes, I suppose. Too busy scratching
at bombs of beauty, maybe. Too busy
bringing the forests & arroyos the news
that there is no news. The heartbeat of
king & coyote reverberate equally in this trembling night.
******
xxiii. Instructions
Smile.
Wake up.
Happiness.
Smile. Wake up. Happiness.
Smile!
Wake up!
Happiness?
(smile.) (wake up.) (happiness.)
Smilewakeuphappiness!
:)
!
.
******
xxxiv. Further
Language is neither the alpha
nor omega.
At one end, silence.
At the other, laughter.
In between: laughter.
******
xxxv. Penultimate (for Lisa Marie)
INSTRUCTIONS
Smile. = E Major 7th = blue
Wake up! = A Minor = green
Happiness = C Major 6th = pink
******
xxxvi. Holiness Rant, part six (for Lisa Marie)
"Transformation can only take place immediately;
the revolution is now, not tomorrow."
—Krishnamurti
Smile. This moment is trembling with the
thrum of thine hands, the quick of
thine beat. Release thine anguish &
electricity as the jay releases the air
& the bush releases its fruit. This moment
contains a blush & a war. Many blushes,
but only one war. Smile. This moment a god,
breaking wide in flames; a man, hands
of ash which cover the world; a dream's
crown & flute, pale, knowing music of dawn,
raw take & flee of noon, arching harmonies
of midnight & deeper; a beast, fragrant
hunger to sleep & gestate; a buzz, a wave,
a pulse. A mystery, a medicine, a holiness
which tramps & makes & crushes.
Smile. Let's save the world. It's easy.
Forgive. Surrender. We make the world
with another's clay. A dance. A deepening.
Wake up! Trust the universe not because it is
safe but because it is home, secret burning
cities of bliss, the living bells of child,
cricket, a mind's unleashing molecule, trust.
Spit back the false dream herb of polity
& scripture. Wake up! Beyond path,
beyond gleam, beyond way. Wage Beauty &
call it thine governance. Weep until you
are ready to begin. Culminate in emptiness,
a shell by an oak, a corpse by a stream,
a book of instructions in the language of
ash. A fever where once strode a man,
a glow evanescing where once a woman
laughed & leaned closer. Wake up!
A scent. A leaving. Holiness sucked
in, a sweet living poison. Holiness in
goblets drunk by artisans, preachers, &
kings. Hidden & studied & bred.
Happiness. A maiden in her dreaming bed.
Her love impels my hand. She is my
singer & my song. Let's save the world,
with whispers & wood, water & smoke,
doubts, dancing, drink the elixir now.
What is holy if not all? Drink the elixir
now! Happiness. There is no world.
There is only a moment, trembling.
There is only this moment, beating.
Weep & begin. Many blushes, but only
one war. A happiness, an emptiness,
a collision with no sound.
I seek the singer to become her song,
become the pen she wields, become the clay
she presses.
I breathe me out slowly, until I am gone,
until I am berries ripened & flown,
a blush to new eyes, a war without hands.