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

Read the Lyric from the Beginning