Her speech a bomb in my ear
a word to crawl in, an entire town
Her tongue a wide muscle
that punches the air
and sends down a glassy tide
upon me here
trapping me inside
beneath and low and down
Trapped in this factory
a land not my own here is
I recall recently
by piebald fireside, in the
shade of a dead bull’s prayerful eye
I watched the world’s
bright colors alight
at that the Center
to be sucked away by the
King of Lies, villainous drifter!
His cloak his dark birthright
With it he ate the stars
Now within the forest
I become myself again
fargone, lost and drugged
My mood is sour
My heart now thrums
But no drums
Never drums
No Maid in sight
and my birthright
this iron slum
this Twin
gone dumb
above me
a shining bulb so bright
descends and hangs
illumes the farthest sides
and penetrates the land
I raise mine own hands
and block the mechanical light
occlude this raped wasteland from my sight
and from my kneeling stance try to stand
And I am shouted down
by the firstborn Sister Marm:
Economy I! Thou Crawl!
It means nothing that
you should rebel
You will still buy, purchase
and the trees will still fall
Soft now, no light now
All gone, and the stars are
hewn from the sky
for they are owned
But no not forever
Just once and again
You must use your imagination
Rebel Friend
One bends over, sucks,
sucks, draws, swallows,
pens a pretty poem!
about a whore –
this saintly whoredom –
and then
repeats again
thus the market wins
so the death of clans
the best laid plans
of men and men
their bodies stripped of meaning
and their women turned upon them
The felled tree too is a paperback
violence, a Californian
split-second glance:
it passes, it passes, it passes
Here again with swift incessancy
comes the time to
suck, to raise
to hold
I, Blue Bound and so not morose,
I raise my hands skyward,
thighward, lewd
lumberjacking with
incalculable constancy
with such mechanism
and in mechanism such beauty!
The fire is out
yet the market is lit!
You see I sew the seeds, lash and whip the rod,
assail the trees, suck the amber sap,
then again I cut the bough,
and thereby castrate
a dEAD fORGOTTEN gOD
how odd was he! how strange and odd!
Speak, Rebel Bone
We see you want to speak
You talk of trees
Of trees you speak
Yet here they are all iron
and filled with amber blood
like beads I slip on them
their lifesong’s stony flood!
I must climb upon them higher
I must take to a glass boat
and drift here so high above
even as I am below
pining for my ancient fire
Hush! Hush, Child
says that whore Economy,
blue book in hand,
as bound she as the book
has been
She stands upon the glass
layered there upon me
in ribald splendor
she begins her weird repast
and eats, and eats
devours
the same dough-white
devils that led me here
those pasty fellows
Yea, a millionfold
tramp, stamp, walk
as white as crushing blind
is white, and blind as white
has lack, rejecting all color
on principle, all talk
so vamped of other
speaks, lingual peaks
become caustic
and rust out all
our body’s thoughts!
You must
Hear now
Their marching
Each step
A fall
And crunching
No blushing!
She eats those who pass her by
and shows no remorse
Her God is spittle
and a white-dough Apple Pie
Hush, hush, Child
she says again
devouring
Speak not while I illume you
and lay my wordy blessings upon your glassy heart
all while my sister sings
No, you are nothing
and your sister,
she is mute
I am not nothing
Yet, though blind, you are astute
Yea, I am a Juggler Queen
I am the birthing residue
of all men’s lacking
and getting
to find they lack again
even the power then
to choose
You know the feeling
as surely as you know the drink
Kingly Drunk
To lack
Then to have
To use
And then discard
Tell me you know that not
and I will cease my lecture
Tell me you that not
and I shall lay down my gifts:
All Pleasures
good weather
soft feathers
and a pill that kills the stoic's leisure
I know not what I know
My memory is gone
I am the moment,
wandering once by the fire just now
Spied I a dead thing
And its eye was mine
And my eyes bore
Witness to a reflection:
a pale black shade to
awaken me
To see, startled,
that I am not what I once had been
Yes I am the present
and have left that,
the Place of the Blade
The Sister speaks
her gold book closed
her speech is sung
and so sung, staid -
an opera upon her tongue
a flower and cross
crowned upon her head
Who then is he
He there beneath our arms
Who kneels so respectfully
before we, the Sister Marms?
Looks he like you who speaks beneath.
Could it be, you are the same
and should I be concerned
Should we be alarmed?
My Twin he is
and a liar he is
now mute
I claim him not
He has no truth
Will he hear too my song
asks the second Marm
which has its own stark truth?
Yes, I will hear the song,
She leans, her
body a fleshy bow.
She leans to say:
turn then upon your belly
and face your brother there
Place you your hands upon the glass
and open your eyes
now stare
The Speech of the Blue Marm
Shanti Shanti
Shanti Shanti
What, you want to jig now?
the Twin speaks thus to me, he mocks
Come on we’re on the move
heading deeper into these, your sylvan girders
to the schoolmarms’ worried home
where they will speak to you great truths
and give to you their Roman oaths
You will see you will see
that they will take your burden
and in so doing
you will forget the fire’s bloom
and lose yourself in dozing
in a happy, silent tomb
Shanti, right? Shanti?
say what you mean to say
say it straight to me
All right enough of it
I don’t speak it
Don’t speak Sanskrit
Don’t never know how I’ll learn now
adrift away from those core-home bones,
that degrading prayer and corpse,
all drugged now like this, pill-swilled and windblown
my soul’s no soul no more
my soul’s no soul at all
I walk, we walk, he walks
I stall, crawl, and mutter
Jedi, right? Jedi?
What are you trying to say?
Just say it
Just means “knowledgeable warrior”
No way, dude
Yes way, it does
That’s what it means
I’m not myself anymore
Not since the pill I’ve swallowed
See now see now visions have swallowed me
in turn, flowing Thameslike
Nilelike, Redlike, Mississippilike
they thirst themselves upon me
deeper than the first wrought deep they’ve sank and flowed
till they spill out ceaselessly
in words I can’t believe
Reprieve, reprieve, reprieve!
I plea
Art thou not so bold too? To float
upon these rivers: the Ganges
inside of me, Rebel Bone a
riptide, an overflowing
the Missouri, the Missouri!
Whence this ranting, toward where
Why, and for what?
Am I the Drunken King, that fool?
No surely, I am not
For it is he we go to meet,
not these ladies of the school
I heard there are those devout
who can recite the whole Qu’ran
Like Mohammed or something
He must have done that
once, first, to bring it down
from on high
He must have recited it
Not just some of it no but all of it
Every last word of it
from forth to aft and again
imagine from aft to forth
a great, religious gibberish in reverse
some unholy revelation undoing itself
golden, blue, blue and golden
Princely, wiser than wise
Not just the good parts going forward
No but all of it, each and every word a summoning:
a holy book like a bell!
a bell to ring the boys to war
to sing the joys of war
a holy book – we’ve got one too - like a well
and inside it, reflections borne
and deeper
well well well
Again my twin is laughing,
Surrounded by homunculi
I blink, I swing, I lash
and they’re gone from my sight unabashed
To recite words like that
must take some measure
One must be good at it like Hasan i Sabbah must have been good
all busy in his bleeding work at Alamut
with a pipe and a knife turned against those tired Sunni throats
like his men had good aim and virgins waiting to stain them
but somehow pure, somehow
because sex’s economy in heaven must depend
on blood shed here on earth
and nails drilled through martyr’s hands
like Wounded Knee
and our kingly Wounded Head in Texas
came down on the whole of we
we who are going somewhere
we who are released by
the Father Emperor
who is never angry anymore
nor a snakehandler
nor even Italian
or Hebrew or anything but
pale-brewed whiteness
some kind of same-sick purity
a Credit Card to call on
when the Iron Land topples round you
and the blade’s about to fall
the arrow well set and drawn
We've almost got it right,
but still it is so wrong
In love of God there is no room
for near misses
You are either weak
or you are strong
We who are going somewhere
surely it is up
surely it must be up
but just as surely love isn’t enough
nor peace
because peace ain’t real
you’re just dreaming
I don't even know
don't know what's
what's real what's
me at all
a blow, a cry, a strong blow
I’ve dust within my eye
I don’t even know
My thoughts take me as we go
till, unthinking, I lose my way
and let my twin guide me
till we’re deep within the iron maze
There with some sweet alacrity upon the grisly iron maze
two parading schoolmarms stand, Victorian in fashion,
umbrellas in their tireless grip
asweat, lashing looks with those towering books in hand
their hair nettled back like towers, like spikes
so brown it must hurt them
We are here
She, the left, is religion
She, the right, economy
Silence now, don't you speak
Silence there: upon your knees
I do
I kneel
Ego video
That is to say
I see
The left one holds her golden book aloft
in her sweet right hand
and looks down from the towering parapet
The right too holds her own blue book up high
this in her dark left grip
They gaze they upon my twin and me
one dour, one bright,
and switching they grin and weave
They move, quickly, and form a pair
four arms now aswing
like some weird Eastern god
while behind them the doughy man now
does his kooky jig
and my twin, smiling,
says
Listen
to not is sin
Watch
tis here the rule
Where then is the Drunken King?
There is no Drunken King
only his Brother Fool
adrift in vicissitudes
lost beneath the amber moon
And who then is he, this fool?
He is you, my soul
He has always been only you
doomgloom
I’m a postwar Dizzy Baby
heading toward my doom
I see some pills, they were buried
and eat them in the gloom
Bing
Bang
Bong
Boom
They are fast acting!
Boom
Bong
Bang
Bing
Running running running
away from the homunculi
going going gone
away from that prayerful eye
Head into the woods yes?
Well okay I shall
Head into the woods so
and then right quick it starts to feel a lot like
well well well
And I’m chasing the chaser now
the night bird over my back
running straight down to
you know
in a handbasket of my own design
and making
a Quaker Oatmeal buggy
made from pigskin and the orgasms
she’s always and ever been a-faking
It feels a lot like dying
with Bobby lyrics in my head
Telling me he wants me dead
for all my sick, sad lack of trying
And I eat them in the gloom
the words in a geyser stew
and the woods
are not the woods
I
crash
slip
fall
The moon pirouettes
crash
lands
bang
right on my left
then left on my right
then right on my head
in twain I too am cleft!
Twas that half I was chasing
Caught, my twin tells me:
The Drunken King has a pleasure palace here
his own dear-won Kublai Khan
with girls cut up and dangling
like leather-studded prawns
on iron bars and scaffolding
they hang for the sin of lust
and shall hang
adrip with oiled tawns
for the sins of all of us
and he’s sent an emissary to meet you
a little doughy man, my twin
wan as the King was once wan
that is to say: fat like a Chinese fan
in bloom on a marble stand
The Diamond Daughter a long gone song
a memory, a haunting wrong
so you might as well forget about her
and get on with getting on
So say I, your twin
You are he and he is we
and you are me
capicse?
and I’m chasing him again now
because there’s nothing else to do
and the woods are steel girders
with semen as their glue
they’re not woods at all
they never were, in truth
Homunculi
Aside the flames toward breaking dawn,
still dark
No cock-crow yet
nor alarm
We stand and watch
as wood smoke takes the air
all smoke and beauty to breathe
Right fair
Again I am moved
I watch
and brood
The smoke takes me
to a worldly womb
of speech and wounds
in its thick gray plumes
Vain, here you too shall corpse
Wild, here you too shall die
I shant
Not I
I foresee
I prophesy:
and children are in my second sight
become homunculi all around us
all white
and upon that white
further white
and I, one of them tonight
I cannot stand to witness the coming of the thrice-split glory
those gory Kings as they descend
no!
I shall into the woods
I will flee from here
and never return again
to fireside and smoking sparks
to the sound of beating drums
From the plains I will run
and within the woods: freedom
and amidst the trees: ecstasy
like one feels who ascends
within a dream, unleashed, all cadence and grandiose wings
all lungs but no need for air, the wings lift and beat
in the dreams of which I speak
the wings lift and boom over plains and woods
over mountains and thence
higher! till one sees the curve of the Earth:
our sweet circle
our first mother
Rooted here upon the ground outside the fire
I turn in and see
flame-burnt homunculus,
the dough-man duality
the sweet-eyed curse
grinning from the afterbirth of the slain image therein
Split, I shout,
doppelganger thou
Split you are!
By whom? And how?
And the blade and that Man who stares down from the north, all eyes
sees too, I know:
Upon the flame a body in twain cut at the chest, then down low toward belly goes the cut and then, what?
I leave it
I run, scrambling, to the woods
a screech-owl behind me
There I will be safe
There will I learn how
and take freedom from a spruce’s crooked bough
the wolf’s howl my dowager
my feet my plow
The Fire Speaks to Me
If you bend back toward yesterday
you will find tomorrow
The fire speaks thus to me
If you listen closely
and begin to hear and see
Your shadow dances there
behind you, Dear!
The fire says this to me
We sit around this circle still
in cold, yet winter drear
and listen to the fire
as she crackles and spits and sears
the blade hangs o’er it
the blade swings o’er here
A terrid hour limps along
till beneath the pale moon
a jigging silence speaks to me
If you listen closely
and begin to hear
Your history dances there
behind you in a row, Dear!
The silence speaks to me
Behind you in a row!
The fire jumps and digs in
wanting more wood to eat
It burns itself to sparks,
so fills the grove with lines of dark
which sink right into me
You’ve got to whisper now
since the Northern Man watches over
You’ve got to whisper now
or risk a violent ardor
the dark lines say to me
So I do
and I dare to do
Now I speak direct to thee
We are, you’ve heard, the unborn
the purported Queens and Kings
We know nothing
We’ve heard no thing
and so we feed the fire
with our lack and fickle swing
With stormy shivers and great desire
we shall feed the fire
until our reckoning
and these bones walk again
Forget not the place! The grove! The space!
Herein we sit, the sparked conflagration at center,
And upon the north the kingly geek
sits idly, eyes upon the wise, oppressive blade,
his fingers producing weird shapes
that taunt and maim the air
His fingers dig his hole
and trap the light in there
But nothing of it
is born
No goodly Maid or King or Queen
nor loving promise of a dream:
just his ugly faith
all world-worn and byzantine
It corrupts the skull
I say
and so we must rebel
I say
and so we must raise hell
And I whisper too loud
I get a bit too proud
He’ll have none of that he will
We’ll have none of that
here
says he
My head’s going to twist now here a bit
There it goes like an epileptic’s fit
When the sorcerer catches wind of my whisper
He snips my tongue right quick
There he goes
Jiggling the strings again
There he goes
Pretending he’s my friend
that he has my interest in mind
that he’s not from the northern town
of his own creation
a whirring sound
accompanies his rising
and I am the only one that hears the gears turn
Am I?
It’s got so you can’t speak anymore without saying something incendiary
It’s got so you can’t say anything anymore without inciting something windy
some call to better days
some Polyanna ideal
some great, arching hate
some bitter pill
to swallow
still
It’s got so you can’t kill anymore… the buffalo anymore
They’re all gone… thrice gone
Their bones piled high in the sky
for us to stand upon
and we do
even as we stand upon the ground
which bleeds so bloodlessly
This is their hemorrhaging roar
blood spattered upon the ground
for miles all around
for miles all around
This is my Polyanna dream
from my rebellious bones and pineal home
I root out my truth:
n’ there’s a dead buffalo skull right here nearby
a plastic doll sits upon the fire with it, thrown on last Friday
and who is she, anyway?
Whose ideal? Whose thing for play?
Not the Diamond Maid’s, for she is the Emperor’s truth
who comes from the west?
Nor the Builder’s, for he is the Emperor’s way,
who comes from the east?
Nor the Drunken Fool's, for he is the emperor’s play,
who comes from the south?
And what comes from the
who comes from the center?
Who?
There’s a puppetmaster
That’s a good puppeteer
good
He releases
and then he enters
He releases
and his strings are invisible
not at all physical
A line becomes a blade
A blade becomes a line
That sinks right into me
until again I find the fire crawling on my knees
A blade cuts into plastic
and a head is so severed
Its image and its idol
are hereby left for dead
Leaving they a hole
in their gaudy stead,
filled by light nor sound
nor by words that might be read
Just the hollow hole
and an echoing, sinking lack
from its wide, empty bed
calling
Who am I? Who am I?
I am we and what is that?
The unborn Kings and Queens,
heads lopped off
no body and no mean
no pure water to make us clean
heads lopped off
no body and nothing in between
Our body is hanged and quartered
frozen elsewhere on the plain
The buffalo bones are here more honored!
Warm here by the fire
Right here by the flame
All this plays before the Princes
with the memory of their beloved forebear
well, well in tow
They, muted by the wind now blowing,
nearby silent stand
They, with bullets in their eyes,
and drums within their hands
now cry out for the three World Kings
to alight in order at their respective keys
Two there are for each
So again the drums they slowly sing
once more to life they thrum
and I, the bony hunger,
leave the circle to take their thunder
An owl flies down from aloft
And what could it want to see?
The owl doth speak to me
And what could it even need?
Who then am I? it says
Who, it asks, are thee?
Rebellious Bone am I
I whisper back to it
and so all of thee
And you, unbeknownst, are each all Kings and Queens
unborn but soon to be
as free
as the Earth is green
as wise
as the world is wide
and as bright
as the stars you see
