weekforty

Week Thirty-Nine: Audio.


Track for Week Thirty-Nine is available for listening, thus concluding the third cycle of The Year of the Buffalo.

The Four Trumps of the Dakotas
(Maccabeus & the Man with the Axe)

In which we learn the nature of the bet that led to the death of the Diamond Maid, and further understand the guilt of Ray Lahoon thereby.

Part the Second

Summer
To spring
In my hands:
Time again

A Freeman

Maccabeus
Guerilla
Warrior

Judas Maccabee
The other Jude
A bug in my hair
Wields swords
Axes, sharp

And all that’s left
Is purest thought of

an Israel
We’ve never visited
Nevertheless
We’re always
Ever there

Release us
Release me
From the memory
Of the bloodstained
Bullet
Ridden by devils
a-cackle a-cackling
We want
Freedom
From ourselves

So badly

And Canada’s
So damned
Close

As summer
Turns to spring
Whirls to spring
The everlasting
Turning

Undone
By a bullet
On a wing

Till my mind’s eye
presents another dream!

A queen’s head
On a stump
A girl running
Through a closed door
And stops
Drummed down

Ready to be axed

Maccabeus
The Man of the Clubs
Is the Man with the Axe
Caesar’s dizzy twin

And all things
Bleed into one
Rome and
Israel

All
To me
The same
To me

All stories!
But stories
Reveal
Plans
And plans
Become
realities

You see
A bet was made
by a drunken
sorcerer

Bet you can’t hit an apple
Off the head of your wife

With this gun

A bet was lost
A bet was won

And visitors
Always go first

I missed my wife
and hit the girl

and for the first time
on this long road

I remember
The smell
And the sound

Of it

Choking iron
Sulfurous smell
Hell boiling up
Dante would be proud,
That Chuckler

And oh the blood
of
William Burroughs’
Brotherhood

Concealed
By damned words
By a fantasy

And a want
For purification
By smoke
By wind
By fire

Native

And I want it
Now

And so I go
And as I go
She dies
Every minute
Again and again
Her blood spit out
Over the stonehard
Skull
Of a collector’s
Buffalo

And God
gods
“God”
I want her
Back

And it’s right
That I must kill
To make it so

The sword’s
A thought
Now

And bullets
Are all real

Rebellious
Thickjaw

Brethren mine
Old brother me
Boney Rebel
Waits

Over the fire
And hearth
Of my grandpa’s
Home

Where took place
That described before

So hangs
That Rebel
Bone

Bloodstained
Skull
Surely

As was left

Hidden

MY

Holy
Evidence

For he
shot the girl
Not

I



weekthirtynine

Week Thirty-Eight: Audio.


Track for Week Thirty-Eight is available for listening.

The Four Trumps of the Dakotas
(The Glorious Edge of Nowhere)

In which we again change narrators
becoming the pure consciousness
of Ray Lahoon: the diamond in the skull,
and discover the long stretch of highway
that is I-94

Part the First

Minnesota
Never was
And there was never
Anything
Before
But trees
And dead
Chattering smiles

Some dream
A comic book
History
Before this here
Highway

Here Lahoon
Is nothing
But a diamond
In the skull
Somewhere
They would call it
Consciousness
And sell it to you
In a Hare Hare
pamphlet
Here we just call it
The road

Here now!
I am a basketcase
Kid
Delivering
Papers
Pumping gas
In Fargo
Chasing
Races
I blink and

I am a basketball
Girl
Chucking balls
At nothing
And wondering
How the hell
To get out
Of this town

Down the road
down

I am Bismarck
And I am Mandan
And I am
Everything
In between

Missouri
Becomes Mississippi
And both consist
Of
I’s
And I am’s

I am and
I hear the choking
Escape
Of bloodclogged
Drains
And shotgun
Weddings
With bullets
Not bells
And bridestains
Not brides

Eternal
Recurring

Like has been said

I am the First
Of Four
Trumps
immutable

I am pinochle
Second dates
And Indian
Summers

I am the heart
On the sleeve
And the card
Up the same

I am all of it
And more again

I am the axe
In your back
And all
the Indian
Givers
On trial
As their victims

Swing in the summer wind

I am the beast
On the ground
The grain
Milled up
And spit out
To drink you
Beerdrunk

On the prairie
A beer Mass
Last supper
Summer wind

I am German
And Ukrainian
And Irish
Diaspora
And the language death
the culture
death

maggot culture
reborn from the carcass
of eastern European
western European

pain and fear

the maggot smiling
in the summer heat
the wind blows and

This America
Devours
Itself

And giant waffle
Breakfasts

2 for 1

On the side of the highway
Between Fargo
And Jamestown

Here
I am still dying
Forever
At war
With the east
At war
With the west

And the north and south
To come

Four kings
Four trumps

And at the center

Two princes
Made of one
Blood

Now summed

What a card





weekthirtyeight

Week Thirty-Seven: Audio.


Track for Week Thirty-Seven is available for listening.

Battleground in the Soul Wars

or

A poem, part of an even longer poem, in which our “hero” crosses the great Mississippi river between Saint Paul and Minneapolis in early September, 2008 after some days’ driving nonstop from New York and, while ruminating on the horrors of American driving culture, experiences an epic hallucination of America’s god(s) at war in this our weird, modern era. The hallucination reaches down, touches him, and levitates his vehicle over Prospect Park, past the University of Minnesota, above the IDS Tower (barely not crashing into it), and past even the deathskull Metrodome, to finally place him fifteen miles northwest on I-94 on the way to North Dakota. This takes place at 808PM in a quartz sunset.

None of this is noticed by anyone attending the Republican National Convention at that time.

Ahem.


You think that
These many hours
on the roads of sensual America
Would give you a sense
of the grandeur
of it all

Yet for me
Bleeding me
Tired me
Me me me
It’s been nonstop
Malls banks and church steeples
Pre-fab fantasies
And the holy light of gas
Station
Upon
Station
Upon
Station

Oh
And the flags
Some thousands
Each rammed
Into the Earth
in measure
Against the dark
Truth

Were I
To salute them all
My arm would
Fall off
And I would
Crash
Into a schoolbus
Full of Rockwell
Schoolboys
Boy scouts
On their way back
From camp
Winnamuckaruck
Fubar
Doodle Dandy

Flag after flag
Highway side
Jammed huge
And booming
From pancake
Homes
That kill us
Slowly
With sweet sauces
And so much butter

Or they’re
redwhitenblue
stuck
on bumpers
on dangerously driven cars
that the banks
still mostly own

And it’s the same
For you too
When you’re
Driving on
These
American roads
If you’ve been
So cursed
So privileged
So doomed

But let’s not
Let me be
Too cynical
Here

The highways are
After all
A military
installation

naturally

Jesus Fish
Cuts me
Off!!!

I spare
The finger
And breathe
Deep

We cannot know
Someone until
we see how they
behave
in traffic

And it has been said
Know Thyself

I’m the kind of man
Who breathes
Before shooting

I exit
And prepare
To cross
The river
From Saint Paul
To Minneapolis

But I digress

Yes

I was talking
About Highways
And America’s
god(s)

Behind that stupendous
Highway America
Is
Another America
Is
And behind that
Mall America
Is
Another America
and she’s still
not through

with me

You can keep
Highway America
I’m almost
Done with her

But not yet

Oh Lord
Glass bottle
King

Wellstone
Bumper sticker
Cuts me off!!!

Planet Earth
Is planet earth
And the Universe
A cold one

We got lucky

Well

I’m almost
To where
That bridge fell
Last summer

And must
detour

I am tired
So very tired
Of driving

I calculate
If I’d rented
This car
I would owe
A jillion dollars
In use – mileage

Look at the gas
Guzzling creeps
They’re all on phones
All on phones
Some of them
Read behind the wheel

But nowhere else
Strange

$710 dollars a week!
To rent
A death machine
From Hertz

hurts

No thanks
My car’s not
That
Erotic

Mine’s
Just
Getting
The
Job
Done

The clock reads
808
PM

Minneapolis
Here I come

Sun setting
The sky is a quartz
Crystal
Like unto
The one
They planted
In my skull

Lahoon
My boon
My bride
My groom
My daughter
My doom

Sinisteria
Wisteria
Sky

Lahoon
Is my
Inner

I

Driving
The clouds
Collapse
Into skulls
And bones
Quivering
Dancing bones
Of white
Gone purple
Gone white
Ivory
And violet
Do battle
Fight fight fight!

The American god(s)
At war

With themselves
With itself

With me

Truth and lies
Right and left
Death and life
Youth and death

Fight fight fight!

Football wet dreams
Quarterbacks in flux
Hot dog stands
Figurines, glass dolls
Children in adult bodies
With bank accounts
Some would kill for
Running amok

Sad old men
With nothing better to do
Than to police
A park
Or play
Some golf

Children raised
By the state

Children raised
By religious fanatics

Children raised
By patriotic millionaires

Children raised
By the Just Don’t Cares

One arm in the Sky
Two arms in the Sky

No beard
No smile
No God

Just god(s)
and the Sorcerer
has finally
re-arrived

The river
Below
A snake
Flowing toward
New Orleans

Everybody
On the take

The sky
Collapses

My orison
is a beat up
Volkswagen
Floating now
In the sky

The thing
In my skull
Begins
To glow

And I
Am transported

Over
Above
And beyond

And these words come:

“Light is fragile now in this place
Flickers pale beneath the sun’s
Descending grace
Till unabashed the Sorcerer King stands
And holds me
To him.
And takes me
Into his
craggy face.”

Westward
He throws me
With a flick
Of his bonewhite wrist.

And lets me see from high above,
for the first time
in my long days,
This god(s) War
For what it is:

“A dream

But no less dangerous
For being that

For dreams
Move men
However
Unreal
However
Obscene.

Dreams kill kings
And dreams kill queens.”

Dreams drive
the real.

He stares
He nods
He grins

And leaves me
On the road
again


Ahem.
Amen





weekthirtyseven

Week Thirty-Six: Audio.


Track for Week Thirty-Six is available for listening.

Of Westward Paranoia

This feeling now
as I exit the bus
as I rent a car
as I rent a home

This feeling now
Woodward
Toward a cabin
And a memory

To find
A smokepit
With smoke still rising
Blowing westward
Westward blown

I stare at the smoke,
And I say
With upright
Honesty
And a homecomers
Groan

This:

I have felt the
Red hot poker
Of fear
Jab into my
Left breast
With such persistence
I believed
I would
Die

I have soaked
Swimming in my own
Mania
Hearing
Bombs outside
The living room door
Just beyond the
Office
Just beyond
the wall

unholiness
dark, winter light
tear gas miseries
of which I know
little
but feel
plenty

I have been
Christ crucified
On electric rails
and great squadrons
of free-thinking
nobodies
surrounded me
with payments
for services
I did not render

Romans
Christians
Americans

gods eating gods
and stones crumbling
infrastructure nothingness
drab men
drab stones
drab gods

From these
I have fled
To my
International automobile
Gone suddenly Freudian
And I have breathed
Breathed breathed

And I will do this

again
And again
And again

until the
war
is over

until I win
my war

this home
of smoke was
once mine
not the Bones
it’s time
I hunt
Him down

And westward
Slowly go

William Tell
The conqueror
A Daughter
A dream
A stone

And bones
Piled
Upon bones

The Black Maria
In a Polaroid

And the bones
Piled
Upon bones

Call me
Westward
home