Track for Week Twenty-Four is available for listening.
Pure Mind Unfolds
Pure mind unfolds before the Keeper of the Gate:
a man across the sodden field, a grinning glimpse
Ray Lahoon in his hand a white rose he holds
and steps forth into the gray light
He limps
The tower stands
The rose is white, and as white as it is soft
So it is light
Clipped fresh from the tower’s side
He sniffs it, he grins, he smiles, he lies
“This rose is from a lover
of mine. This rose a gift
so fine!”
The rose was picked
That’s true, no lie
But picked by no virgin
Was too by his father’s
Still bleeding fingers
And set there
On that rough cloth lapel
with a frown and with a wish
Son, please return. Though you have been charged
With the impossible. To seek the Orphan’s brother,
The sage Sorcerer long gone. And to kill the Rebel Bone.
But impossible things are mysterious. And the mysterious
Are mysteries. Yes, please return to me.
And carry on our line.
But failing, return not.
And carry on you then
Thine.
This said beneath the tower’s shade
I there a stone enframed
Pure mind become, my senses
Over-run
And handed to Lahoon
By a young pale maid
Lahoon, weird Sir, before you can approach
The gate it is said
You must take this stone
This fine diamond white
And ensconce it inside your head
Here, here is a little miser’s blade
Used for opening a letter
Take it
and cut flesh instead
“Oh, oh girl!” declares Lahoon.
“But I must give you something in trade.”
What have you, Sir, that I would want?
You’re a dead man.
That forest will be your grave.
“Here. This rose here. White
with this one stain of red.”
It’s fine. I’ll take it. Goodbye.
Walk well.
‘Tis death where you
Shall tread.
“I think you fear the garden
of the Mysterious Emperor,
girl. And fear is gone from me.
I have loosed the rope! I am charged
To find the enemy.
And return the Sorcerer King!
I am a hero.
And you,
For a verse,
A heroin.”
So the rose as swift departs.
Lahoon takes blade to head.
He cuts, incisive.
And places the stone
Inset.
The world slips away.
The rest must stay untold
As two souls converge.
Pure mind unfolds!
A Diamond Mind
Wracked, the stage drops down
One and one and one makes three
Who rise up and then sink down
Their knees upon mine bones
Their eyes upon me now
And in me
How and why and how
Lids droop
And sodden bow
They first are color blue
Then red Rage
Then green Quiet
Then gone and through
The blue-wrought song
And round and on
And round and on
between
Canoes, horseshoes –
Stones and lawns
All gone all gone
As the tower crumbles around
me
As the shades are quickly
drawn
All so bleed into one
And the white
Darkness
Becomes the sun
Setting
Turning
Runs
from feet toward stony ground
Collapses, a shambles, round
And makes a man of a coalish
Trowel
Deceit cast from
The liar’s brow
The diamond inward set
And stone
set here and now
all seeing
conscious
how
Imagine everything unblushing
The rushing
Stumbling
Gushing
Water that woods that stones
All becomes a drum
I too am become one
And one, resonant, sings
Till all just like it hum
It drums and drums and drums
And on it drums
Ceaseless, incessant
- a humming
that comes and comes and comes
and comes and comes
screaming
1ness
a bellowing
w2 are a single drum
and comes
and comes
and comes
till everything is latticed
and the dreaming lives and thrums
all memories vanish
into another
a melted sum
To become a diamond
Mind
I have
Now I am become
The fright and the fear
The gold and the weir
All vanish now
In the colored maze
All fall away
All do disappear
Now I am unset
Now I am undone
for I am pressed to haze
a stone
am I become
The Bell that Rings
Defeat, that swell, is a rainsong
No wonder!
And victory is a storm
Victorious killing: lighting
Hot judgment, scorn:
Scorn then is the thunder come
The threefold jury
One and one one
so too three
Rage and Quiet and Song
Each must hear
This tale of mine
Each, please, I beg:
listen long
Have pity on one
As I
Who has yearned
and has pined
Till blind
And seeing
Have grown blinder still
The clouds inside
You know them, Sirs!
Have grown wild
Rumbled around
And writhed
Till occluding
Even that selfsame sky
Which birthed them
Like so many calloused hands
Gloved by burrs
They too are orphans
These bulbous clouds
They too are drained
From their own fountainhead:
Leaving not a dram
And purple now
Then red
The colors
Inside
My private wilderness
The clouds
Inform my head
Till my head floats among them
and I, my soul floating,
follow in their stead
For feeling through these sights
And spectacles
Accosting me as the King’s
Grand chosen adoptee
I know not truths
And these near past dealings
I’ve dealt not well
No
No
No
Cards
were played
No
No
No
Cards
were dealt
You
You
You
Are suspect
You
You
You
We doubt
Who framed
Ray Lahoon
And set him out
From this tower’s glow
Into the hot green doom:
The woods might be his tomb
And so too may they be
For you
What say you?
You
You
Who framed sad Ray Lahoon
and cost his father his hand’s
right grip and hold
You who were born to a new dead mother
And so grew to take our Tower’s form
In defense, a cadence
A rhythm
And a swell
All is not well
All has not been well
Lo
The escape is all
Like a ringing bell
The hell the hell
It’s a ringing bell
The tower’s tall
And shall not be felled
The wells the wells
Shall be dug, nor neither felled
The Sister calls
And may well be known
She yells and yells
Shall sing on through it all
A sound:
Yeah, yeah, the escape is all
Like a ringing bell
The hell the hell
Crumbles once
A stone
A breathe
And a memory
I once had a brother.
You know that this is so.
The brother was a trickster juggler
And become a sorcerer
And declared a king
T’was no king
But he declared it.
And so became that thing.
I once had a sister.
The sister was right and fair.
And she became a sorcerer.
And she was declared a bride.
T’was no bride.
But was so declared.
And so she became that thing
And breathed that thing like air.
What wonder
And mystery:
To become the thing
That one declares!
Ahh jealousy runs
In the family, mine. And woods
Are all flames for me.
My brother, mad,
Went to seek my sister
Lost. And the lost sister,
Encroached she upon
Some rogue and wild man
Offering no dowry’s righteous cost.
So I the orphan,
Thrust to position
Raged and turned
Accosted I the King
In nights of vision’s burn.
Till I made the burning
A thing more than whim.
And caught
Pay I now for my
Jealous sins.
Pray, mercy:
Kill me
That I might
Anew begin.
Oh pay you shall.
Ho, ring that bell.
It rings!
Lo, here’s the swell.
Look there through that grate beyond
and see you Ray Lahoon.
Cast out now into fear.
Thrust forth now into gloom.
Raised were you
To fear the woods
Before all else
And to crouch inside
The Tower
For safety and for wealth
compiling
Lo, you too see Eyeless Ray Lahoon
Blind, he goes forth
See you now! He is
smiling.
How can that be?
It is because you go with him.
And you will help him see.
But I refuse.
Refusing
Will not undo.
What we intend
to see.
Once, thrice
Reverie.
Light
Cascades
Over ye’.
Latticed, rhythmic
And crashing steeds.
To dust you go,
And crushed you’ll be.
Till diamondine
you become a stone
A diamond
For Ray Lahoon’s brow
Is our punishment
For thee.
The Judge Calls Forth His Jury & They are Named
Empty now this room of mine
This cellar pitch and shorn of stone
Clear now this court,
And cast out the judged newborn
Ray Lahoon
You are forsworn
By your own blood and hands
So marked
I judge you:
woodgone but of stone born
You must go
And seek down the enemy
That Rebel Bone
And cut his wiry throat
Yes, yes – hurry now
Shuffle shuffle feet
Clank clank the chains
Right quick, lickity lickity
Split
my impatience
is renowned
my title
is my crown
bullet points
blade shrouds
smiles
frowns
cascade
from this
my place
this
my stage
and are
my bread
my butter
too are they my wage
But halt
You there
Ay’ yes, you,
King’s reverent
Wise son of the tower
who speaks and leads and speaks
but takes no time to grieve
You who stands on arabesques
And click clacks your abacus
And beneath your robe a knife
You, brother of the Sorcerer Sage
That clownish mottle
Of a foregone age
Stay
Sole ear of the dead king
You who kneels beneath stone-star skies
And scryes
Numerical
Stay
Dear Judge, why must I now?
I would like to see the casting out.
The action
From your words.
Is that so?
‘Tis so, Sir. It is.
‘Tis? ‘Tis true also
That I am a lonely judge.
That I too am an executioner.
Dull time passes here,
and I while it away
in conversation with
three jurors.
You have heard of them,
surely, for it was they
who once judged and made
our Lord and King.
It was they
who raised that dead Lord
from nothing –
they are called
Crime, Fate, and Wage.
Lust, Birth, and Age.
Owners, Sellers, and Slaves.
Each name by a past King.
And now you’re the thing:
To name them.
And be by that jury judged.
But hark –
Name you these jurors well.
For the naming
shall tell your fate.
And the turning of the day.
For it’s now the noon hour,
Though herein it is dark.
Hark! Name you these jurors well.
Song, Quiet, and Rage, I shall name them.
Song, Quiet, and Rage.
Here then they are
One from stone residual
A Tiny King of Iron
Cyclopean, immodest
Is he Song, Quiet, or your Rage?
Guess well, then
You number hungry heart
Now: start
Now: start
He is Quiet, low and waiting.
See he is mute, a cavernous blue.
See he creeps and stares
his hands before him and high on
one eye wide.
But three eyes bare.
Surely he is Quiet
And quiet then is Iron,
As Quiet stings in loss.
And now one, the first Juror’s brother,
A Tiny King of Moss
Cyclopean, clattering
Is he Rage or Song?
Guess on, then
You knife-wielding heart
Now: begin
Now: start
Why he is Song, loud and clanging.
She he hums even now, a royal hue.
See he keens and wails
his hands at sides and even on
one eye wide.
But three eyes staring.
He is no Cyclops.
How he clatters.
Surely he is Song.
And Song then is moss.
And now the third of these, no triplets:
A Tiny King of Flame
Rose red, rumbling
I already know his name.
Rage he is.
He is Rage.
But hold: do not retreat
from his fearsome face.
Stay.
And so the Jury has been named.
The Judgment of Ray Lahoon
You never know what it means to stare
Into the eyes of a forsaken man
Until you first do
And there
Find you: you are there
And you shall this so find
If you will
And if you dare
It’s true that you shall
If you look long
If you look
With a lover’s care:
dying is a poem
The angels there
With demon stares
And teeth
Their teeth
Are millionaires
And afterwards
What then is there?
The difference lies!
Between a man
and a pair of eyes
a pair of hands
Say I
Who can kill
A King
Say I
Who can do
Most anything
Whimsical – my fancy is
To send this man away
And ask him to seek
Our enemy
And so there
Start a newborn fray
A mob needs blood to live
Needs bleeding fire to burn a path
For names are a stony thing, obscure:
A mob with a path
Is war!
This is a story I create
For reasons all my own
And the mob might swirl
And swim and writhe
The mob shall not abate
Till none of them stand aright
And all of them
Go home
Their hearts washed clean
With hate
And not once
A thought of mind
And never once
A pause, refined
The Mob
Is the King-Killer’s friend
And the Mob-Man
Is the King-Killer’s right-hand
Nameless
He floats and swings
Fearless
He dies
To live again
And lives
To kill the King
He eats pearls
And borrows sins
For nothing is his own
Because he is
No thing
This now
Is a tale of the exile of Ray Lahoon
Which too is the tale of my ripe ascent!
Of he who drank of the serpent fount
and dribbled none but blithe thoughts
from his bright rose mouth
Ahoo, ahoo, ahoo
The wolf is at the door
And you, and you, and you
You’ll fall upon the floor
Blameless
You shall be blamed
And boneless
Go up in flames
Witness there now
Outside of me, the New First I am
Seest thou: the cogs that turn?
my machinations, my
cragged cut weavings?
my turning hours, still toothed?
my contemplations come real, forsooth!
from the drunk hoard of a dead king’s bone
goes an exile from our aged halls
and a mission to protect our home
The hands that once birthed
Now encase, sting, and squirm
A thousand shrouded identities
A thousand more homeless hearts
Held firm by digits’ lives
Never mind the eyes!
Never mind the eyes!
Leave them for the Judge
The blood! Take
And cup it
There
First a drip
Then a flood
To the Judge, yea’
Let’s hurry to the Judge!
They are swirls
They are sighs
They are mothers
They are fires
They are ergot dreams
And sufferings
And cries
A fingerprint so blinds:
One eye
Three eyes
Two eyes
Three
One eye
Two eyes
Three!
Ray
Is known
He cannot tell a lie
But the mob
Cares not
Look now, see he does not die!
With rigid force and scuffling descent
The mob projects into our cellars here
Wherein the Judge doth dwell
And pays no rent
With wisdom, his face
a round pink tear
slow spent
In candlelight rules he
No books surround him, no
His eyes were once out torn
He reads not, and so he knows
The shadows flick and blow
As the candles darkly glow
A courthouse and a jail
- our cellar, and our stove
Look here,
shouts Mob Man
Look here, ‘tis Ray Lahoon
He who failed the King
He who dared to shoot the moon
And of the King’s wise water
To drink
Can you imagine?
What did he think?
‘Tis Ray Lahoon whose blood must be
The price of our hearts’ new miseries
‘Tis Ray Lahoon whose eyes see not
A rot upon him, ay’, a rotten
Rotty rot
Hold, you! Shoutest I
Hold, you, and prepare the Judge’s way
You there, relax there
And Lahoon,
Get on your ruddy knees
and stay
Prepare yourselves for our Judge
Shall speak
Prepare yourselves
To obey
He our Judge pulls himself
From a stony shelf
Well appointed
With pressed iron cloth
And a tie of pitch black wealth
His left eye a gash and wound
His right a selfsame tomb
And above
A blinking slit of white
An eye there
Where no eye should alight
What it sees
Know not I
He walks, a jiggling under his fetal jaw
Till he stands before Ray Lahoon
And the Mob-Man
For once
is dumbed to awe
And I speak,
For I am
The leader of this Mob
And the Tower’s
Favorite son
and Law
Hail, Judge
‘Tis I the King’s best man
You know me, for I have dined
With you
Twice, twice more
And again
We have spoken thrice more and again
Of the need for order
And the beauty
In discipline
Remember?
You had the chicken
still dressed up with its claws.
Ahh yes, the chicken.
I remember. Soaked
in white white sauce.
Hail, Sir
I hear our King is dead.
Tis’ so, Judge
He’ll never breathe again
This saddens me.
And this here,
is this the faulty man?
Sweet Judge, wise Judge, this is why
We’ve brought him here,
And prostrated him at your feet
In hopes you might resolve that same question
And in so complete
This, our intention:
That he might be exiled
For him we ask no detention
He must needs leave our tower
For he has drunk
Of the King’s own wise water
And he is to blame
for the King’s long fall
Detained here
He would be killed
We would kill him
One and all
Shouts Mob Man, out of turn
But then Mob Man
Never waits
nor never learns
I see that it is so,
Says the Judge, right slow
And you, Lahoon, what sayest you now
In your defense
You’ve killed our King
Does the guilt not gnaw at your
Broad, pale chest?
Sir, yes, Sir, says Lahoon,
I am nothing without my guilt.
But Sir, my guilt
Is in my lack of work.
Blame me not
For my thirst.
The Judge squints first,
his eye a wink and burst.
Then wide, he smiles:
But Lahoon! Your guilt
Is your thirst.
And your lack of work too
Lead you to that well.
And your drinking
Is what we first must curse.
I have heard too t’was not you
Who dropped the rope. Too
Has it been said
That the rope was frayed.
Perhaps that rope was cut.
But these things matter not
To those heads out there and up.
They want your blood,
And therein a semblance of
The safety the King for them
Had got. You are one of them.
Or you were. You must see
that to die
you ought.
No, Lahoon says. I see that not.
For the drink
From the King’s well
splayed my mind. You must
needs know and see. Imagine
the lust of downward turning
after images, and fantasies,
and the bodies of lovely girls
twisted forth into a crystal
and stone and a pillowsoft
groaning. Right here upon my brow.
And even now
I see straight through.
This
world can be a hell.
Too
See I
This world can heal.
This world can be made well.
Liar!
I too have drunk
From the well.
And I see not those things.
You lie.
And lie.
And well.
Hush, says the Judge. Hush you
You King’s friend. You too
Were denied the well. But the King
We know, granted you pardon.
Allow me now to Judge.
Lahoon, Ray,
Your crime is complex at best.
Your thirst led to failure.
Your failure was to thirst.
This man, the King’s best first,
wants from you a thing.
You I banish now.
You who killed the King.
Ray Lahoon
Take you your mission from this one
The King’s favored
And upon completion
You might return.
You might again belong.
But no, hold
I am not done.
The punishment
For the drink
Is this:
Thine eyes.
One first.
Then the second one.
So must it be!
See my will is done!
And who shall make the cuts?
Why, you Sir.
You who want so much.
So must it be!
See my will is done!
And how will he then see withal?
To complete what I’ll ask of him?
In exile the woods are long
And sightless, he will surely fall
Ray Lahoon has Eyes that See
As I with mine own eye
Ray Lahoon, you must believe,
Shall see
Without his eyes
Rebel Bone, the enemy,
He will seek
Your Trickster Brother
Too he will seek
And be you not meek, Lahoon!
Be you neither shy nor weak!
For failure hunts you down
And the Bright Water
wears also a
darkly frown
So must it be!
See my will is done!
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