Week Fifty-Two: Audio.
Track for Week Fifty-Two is available for listening, concluding The Year of the Buffalo.
1 Hand
The Ninth Hand Regenerates
“Gnosis”
Is a result
Is the reconciliation
of thought to deed
Of this world to that world
Of yours to that outside
And that woody grove
outside to that of yours
To mine
To ours
The trees bending
The wheat ascending
A sweat lodge
A house of stone
and mud
and the gaping sky
all show
gnosis
all are
the perfect show
The Good Knowledge may not be counted
It may not be quantified
Except by those who diligently
Work
By those
Who make bread
From stone
And gold
From lead
and they
count in silence
grinning buffalo grins
with this kind of pure, bright honesty
that shames the wicked
the greedy – those Ugly Sorcerer Kings
who shroud themselves
in gild and gloss
and speak in jilted tongues
Work is their undoing
for
Work here is understood
Roughly
To mean labor
To mean sweat
You know
No wealth goes to heaven
But real gold does come
From it
For
Gnosis is born
When the symbols are stripped
Of all but the purest form
The angels all go wingless
And yet
They fly
*
The owl upon the bough
That hangs upside down
In the underneath, in the skies above
Hails from five horizons
One for each of the cardinal four
Plus one
His name is Hermetic
He heralds
the end of night
which is ignorance
and the hate-filled heart
But ignorance
Is the best place
To start
It
Says
the everwar and all that rage
are going to melt away
are melting away
The everwar and all that rage
can't disprove the sweetgrass sage
that brushes your horns
down
that brushes down
your horns
*
Here my right hand
is almost blue for the cold
My left all knucklebone
But upon that bone
A ring doth make it gold
Four horizons, yes
But more than four:
There’s five
And upon that starry point
A tower
Once trapped me
A tower does arise
But from the snow’s
Mournful glory
Out of the misty morn
Patience, patience, patience
Out of the dewy darkness
Yes, from shadow
She returns
From shade purple
There: she’s reborn
A patch of blood
A whiff of sage
Patience, patience, patience
I have lain with patience
Sat with such patience
so a diamond hole has burned
my skull
and split my forehead
so I am become again
Each man births himself
With knowledge
Each one is born
or dies
again
upon his choice
upon his deeds
is born or dies
again
a cycle
I don’t mind it
a cycle
she comes to bear
And bearing
Makes it worthwhile
The worth
Upon my shoulders
The earth
Turns
As I stare
Patience, patience, patience
Just one whispering breath
from her rose lips unsealed
Returns me to this place
That I have not left
For three days and three
Hungry
Sweating
Naked
Aware
Unable now to drum
Tired worn
For I have drummed
And drummed
till
Eyes squinted at the snow
Snowblind squinting
At the sun
till
Eyes stared down groves
of dying doughboy smiles
of graves popping from the ground
like tulips
like roses
like snowflakes fall
till I have taken the road
to Babylon
and back again
dripping want of wealth
and power
and lusting
after lust itself
Knowing this all has been
Inside my mind
In the past but born anew
From hunger, from rage
From thirst to this my age
I’ve grown afraid to move
for fear of the bones withal
No illusion now
This drummed up daughter
This maiden of the sun
There she stands
That liberating
Bloodied one
Whose face I shot
On a bet from the Sorcerer
Whose face I could not stand
To see
That countenance
Wide open
Not beautiful
for no beauty is so terrible
as the face of that which makes us
free
that is she
that is she
In sunlight
Is moonlight
In moonlight
Is the sun
I am that I might be undone
and in my undoing
give forth this lodge’s thrum
that’s rung in my ears
and hummed and hummed
Drum back the
Drum back the
Drum back the fallen ones
But to finish it
To be done with it
To sweat out the hardened
past
To reconcile
To heal the left hand
Is not easy
when one is too tired
to drum
and one’s bones too weary
to stand
from guilt, from a wounded hand
from cold, from a wounded hand
from
This thing has been the end of me
That much I know
She repeats
as she comes
Patience, patience, patience
I’m nearly unbelieving
Nearly but not so
Now she kneels to one knee
Now the other one
Her head above of me
She kisses my blasted hand
One kiss
for the beast’s eyes
One now for the beast’s great heart
A third then for the beast’s
Soft ears
And again for the beast’s
wise pelt
Then again
A fifth
For the beast’s
Will to stand
That will
To rise again
There are no killers
There are only boys
There are no victims
There are only the low
And lonely
And so I will sing
So I will sing
As you drum the bones
to war
that special war
Take your hands
Both of them
And drum
Drum back the dead bull down
There are no victims
There are no sins
There are only lovers
And lovers grinning
Cheshire grins
Of pacifism
Of wild wisdom
Burning out old sins
And of the lovers
The best are those that hold
Believe,
There are only whims
The rich are made for dying
as the poor are built to rise
There are no chieftains
There are no kings
and so I will sing
as you drum
I will sing
Drum back the earth, do plow
Drum back the dead bull down
*
Each kiss
Makes a finger
And each finger
Makes a grip
I am armed again
and hands
are made to work
and drum
and war
Ours the special war
That gives life
Gladly
That reconstitutes
Those alabaster
Bones
Like leavening
Does the dough
One at a time
They rise
Shake
First the skull
O’erturns
Then the spine
Like a snake
The hips
The thighs
The wide shoulder-bones
Arise
To the drumming sound
a bony Babylon
but one that speaks
a stony Byzantium
but one that lives right now
to the drumming sound
Shake these bones to life
We shall set them loose
Quickly now
As the noon draws nigh
Let’s release
the drummed back schism
those bones that once were shorn
Which point shall it go for war?
Against princes?
No
Against the east
The west
The south
The north?
No
That is not
his war
There is yet a fifth point
Occluded now by the long
Shadow of the sun
In which stands
That Sorcerer
who hides
from the raging bones
His hands outstretched
Conceited
He still now demands
That you bow
And bowing
your fealty show
The tower beyond him
Teeters
For now
We have released the bull
*
This glad war is fast won
For the Sorcerer
Is a shadow
The bull runs through
Heedless on its course
To the tower
Which truly
Must be
Its enemy
Its running is a roar
Its roaring
Shakes the earth
Shakes the snow
It runs toward the tower
And upon the very moment
Of the sun’s rising to the
Noon-Bright hour
Connects
Yet the tower
Does not fall
For the tower
And the bull
Hold
My eyes do see
Aright
No
Now my hands
Cross over my breast
The sweat
Drips down my face
As I emerge from the lodge
To stare
There is no tower
There
Just a sloping ridge
And the sun
At an angle
Seems to bend it
And upon the ridge and horizon
A white-clothed buffalo stands
As regal as any peacock billionaire
As wise as any sage
As great as any king
As sure as any man
At my left foot
A knife
At my right
A satchel
And a rose
is my heart
and my heart
is my life
When I cannot go on
It works
And makes me
Again and again
I rise
and I say
and I sing
remembering
An eye can be a prayer and
I am civilized; thou are beastly so
Thou are beastly eyed and lustful, lost
I shall come to know you thus
And from this we shall turn to blows
One hand takes the other
I raise them to the sky
Beyond, the buffalo’s breath
Rises, and in the air
Burns white hot
Smoky spirit from the beast’s
Great mouth
And the same rises
From mine
As I drum
I sing
and thrum
My heart's beating is a throne
Drum back the dead bull down
Drum back the dead bull
home
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