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
2 Hands
The Eighth Hand is Shorn
“Moon”
is nothing
but news gone wrong
The television
Silent
The road
Undone
Eats you
Eats me
Eats everyone
All this sad everything
they offer up
Is a lie
Of brother’s bite
Of liberal maids that die
Or roses’ thorns
That cut the hand
and blind the eye
All thoughtless
Gigglings
Nothings
Not gifts for you
Or mine
These well-coiffed ladies on the news
These big-jawed men that laugh
In time
But here there is no room for lies
When the maiden rises up
and the diamond splits your mind
made
one
from
two
for
two
made
one
of
you
*
The owl that guides
and the dough white ones
The four kings that come to call
Are pitch night
and liars’ might
And the directions from which come
one and all
You citizens
Great golden marms
Sit and stand and scold
Olden days fade away
Left only are
We bold
Bright
Blue
Newborns grinning
Wise
Indigo child
fights
Wendigo-psychotic sun
fights
with calm song
and wild eyes
makes
Custer’s dying
Into history
Each and every day
we each and everyone
No victors
In Mankato
Swinging swinging haze
No markets
Up above
Just blood
And forgetfulness
And
Subtle
Silent
rage
terror
horror
blood
and
*
I am not
I
I am thy
Impression
And thyself
Unbound
Now
In the listening
Now
In the moment
Now
In the rhyme
I am that I was
All of it and more
A murderer
A saint
A whore
And more and more
But not dirt no
Nor just flesh and bone
Ascending upon
A ladder of bright-hot
Hands
Caressing
Upon these stairs
Of light
from one till one and none
and on and on I go
pressing my right hand
to the wounded one, my left
in work
I feel the bones
won’t sweat
I feel the bones
It is now I see again the stone and tower
exiler and shadow bare
The place where my father’s hand
was torn
which is nothing
but forgetting
and loss embittering
The past dies every day
therein
Enshrined immaculate
on the horizon there
Just on the horizon there
And it is now
I come to know
What must be done
What must and mote
At my feet,
the fruits of this work
And at my side
The skull
And a buffalo’s tired bones
I take to my fleshy drum
My drum I take and hold
As sweat drips down
and eyes grow tired
I strike and seed
and sew
3 Hands
The Seventh Hand Fights the Other
“Rage”
Is resolution
Is the three in one
It is what it is
Until it is no longer
one
That old tale
of brother biting
the other brother’s eyes
one two three
nipped out through
commerce now
through
excommunicating
thoughts
is dead now
unless we introduce
the daughter
the mother
the maid
that haunts
The spirit moves over the face of the water
And fire alone cannot baptize
The new saints anymore
For the new saints
Will be baptized
By air
*
The Sorcerer King
Is everything
All the peoples’ whims
All the peoples’ sins
Standing outside
the Sweat Lodge
with acrid smoke for breath
and a tongue like acid fire
rolling it rolls
speaking it is a legion
of murmurs
meaningless
profound
“Did you see the news today
Did you see the news?
Did you hear about the crash
Did you hear the crash?
Did you taste that new dark drink
Did you taste the drink?
Did you touch the plastic dolls
Did you touch the dolls?
Did you smell the Rockwell barn
Did you smell the burn?”
And on and on and one
A meaningless wild burning dissonance
A saturation, a glut, a font, and fountainhead
A rot a setting sun
And on and on and one
*
So then
It is
True
A man
Must make
War
Constant
Even now
Against
The mongerers
Congeners
All
Doughboy
Whiteness
Rough dough
Plastic
Blightness
Caroms
Into
Forever
Blasts
Apart
The
Night
Lo’, three hands
Make war
I my one
He his
And hers
From the
Ground
A bony
Finger
Pointed
Napoleonic
Conquers
America
Conquers
All
A man
Must make
War
Constant
Ever now
Against
The mongerers
Conjurer
Tall
He stands outside the door
And whispers
And screams
In one voice
In a thousand
Thousand fold
He lies
For he is the king of lies
His currency
Is the lie
His eyes
Despise
The light
He sees
With second sight
And he’s got me
Distracted
The war
Is a war
Of conscience
It is a war
For peace
For peace
Is not war
Neither war
Peace
No
A man
Must make
War
Constant
Even now
Against
The Sorcerer
Even with
One good
Hand
The other
Torn
From the root
The hand
A father
Drummed
Down
By pressures
Inevitable
Left hand
Right hand
Which then
Is the third?
I am
A hand
Myself
I
Rebellious
stand
And cover
Myself
With skin
Become
That Other Thing
That drummed down
Whispering
That inside Animal
That internal King
To step forth
To make a war
Of conscience
To make a war
With patience
To make a war
With silence
To loom
At the gate
Of my inner life
And standing there I will
Compete
Focus
I will drum out
The murmuring horde
And move to the singular
Revelation
That this saltsweat tear
Running down my brow
Is a locus
Of the all
Is a locus
Of the all
Is a locus
Of the all
4 Hands
The Sixth Hand Makes a Fist
“Ground”
Is what you make of it
Earthen or otherwise
It’s all the same
To the “King”
Emperor Lord
Charlatan
Cuts cloth with a wink
and eats your fingers
on a whim
A death to liars
A death to saints
We are each
Superbly human
*
Ray Lahoon
Is just the name
Of a man with a diamond eye
And the diamond is suffering
That cuts one’s head in twain
There is one creator God
And he goes without a name
He sits here now
In this lodge
And meditates upon loss
and rebirth
and flames
- omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, this God’s true being and real nature are ineffable and beyond direct comprehension, although powerful traces exist both in and around us in the world, which is nothing less than the great book of this living God: as God is omniscient, It knows our experience; as God is omnipresent, It exists inside each of us; and as God is omnipotent, It acts through us. Our experience in this life is but one of many potential experiences, and surely neither the first nor the last of our beings.
Through work it is possible to know real aspects of God in this lifetime. This work of knowing God may be achieved through practice, which is Sweat.
*
Oh Children Mine!
Oh Children Thine!
We are all each queens and kings
Sublime
Take it, grip it, hold it, throw it
And make a castle from a sea of bones
As sweltering heat Dakota sun
Shines down upon you
And the rains wash away your sins
You make a fist,
for the water to pour down
You own this city!
You are this town!
There is nothing left to the sage now
But soft injustice and the ongoing thrum
of the liars’ history
made real by repetition
That chalky lie you lick
And praise
Until the ground itself
Slips away
And the earth
Is flattened
Or may as well be
Upon a flat earth
We cannot walk
And I, remorseful,
Stand and watch my other hand
Squeeze the trigger again
And again and again
Into the face of that girl
That daughter
Of the Emperor
That sweet Maid
Liberty
Oh you Children do not know
Neither do you see!
Those glutted Dutch lords turned modern ways
Stand like tiny kings
Rex Miniscua
Stand they in the field
As you plant tulips on your grave
These grow
From the blood of men
From children’s blood
Into a tower
So high above the slaves
All this to the soundless
Hum of money
Changing hands
Without tune
Neither ripple nor wave
And the flowers bend
One at a time
Until their stems do break
Leaving only
The too-high tower
And the workmen’s graves
And the highway
Oh the highway
Over a flat earth
Going nowhere
Going west
Which is dying
Or east
Which is to be enslaved
Unless one is well prepared
To war
Or…
- It is true that the most destructive idea in the history of humankind has not been, as often claimed, religion or even the notion of the nation-state. Rather, it is the idea of an implicit social hierarchy based on filial or racial ties, of a “privileged class” whose privilege self-enforces and strengthens existing channels of power and authority. All men are created equal, and it is by merit, not heredity or color or gender or creed professed, that a person must come to lead. Further, once this meritocracy pushes one to leadership, this leader must not be given carte blanche and needs to be checked by both the public and its elected officials.
It is true also that man, being charged and blessed to enter life requiring a mother’s care and the bonds of family, is a social and political creature.
And finally, it is the work of the enlightened citizen and politician to ensure that the weak are not oppressed by the strong and that the inalienable rights of each are protected against even the most well-wishing despot or tyrant, company or foreign power, individual or collective.
The public is a wizard
and a piebald sorcerer
and so falls for wizard’s tricks
and so falls hard
Lahoon
The Rebel Bone
drinks a glass
Of water
That he might sweat more
And be purified
before the coming of the day’s deepest hour
and the Sweat’s end
in murder
in sacrifice
no blame
I am thirsty
but thirst is not
my name
5 Hands
The Fifth Hand Baptizes
“Heat”
is as cold as glistening
white-hot stars
burning your retinas
out
from proximity
they burn
if you roll close enough
to them
What is beautiful
Destroys us
For what is beautiful
Is strong
*
The judge
is not named Gabriel
Gabriel is not the judge
The judge is I
Staring
The judge is thou
Revealed
Ahoo
The Caretaker
Ahoo
The Judge
Ahoo
Lahoon
The blood
*
Black dog soldier
Red dog soldier
Stand like pillars
Two
Hot stones in hands
They tend the fire
And heat the stones
Their hands are ancient hands
Revealed metal
You throw away
The ring from the good
One hand
I dip my head and bow out
To pray
The only good thing in this is connection
To the other
And that
Is all around you
It’s true then that the only pain
Is disconnection
From this other
That which is
All around you
Let the rain come down
And the blood, pulsing
Drown out all sounds
I pray
But no
No disconnection
A hand
To forehead
With water
For I am now
Not yet sweating
It rolls down
Soft
As a teardrop
Your daughter’s hand
Cut
It is your own
Your father’s hand
Torn from bone
It is your own
Thinking on this,
I step inside
Thinking on this,
I go alone
6 Hands
The Fourth Hand Caresses
“Gold”
never glistens
unless you circle
the sun
With a flash of light
Everything emanates
From this
This one
Secrecy
Hidden in the open
Upon the plain
Inside the heart
*
The bird stares down
From the woody copse
His left eye
The sun
His right
The other one
His head twists
Round
And stares
At the stump
That was
The hand
of the descending
bones
a man and bull
joined
weirdly
*
Sitting there
In the sweating lodge
Is the man I have sought
I Lahoon
A bag of bones
Prisoner
Dissenter
My right hand gone
I see his left is shorn
Strange that we should mirror
Even in memory
Nothing is clear
And there he sits
With the flap undone
A blast of smoke above him
And below him the cold hard ground
There to his side
The skull I recall
A bone as old as God
A buffalo’s
Skull
No flesh now
All bone
Upon which
Blood was spent
Of my Beloved
Wasted,
Homeless blood
A hand as long as horizon
Eyes as dark as sleep
Left hand
Trigger finger
Torn from knuckles
And white knobs revealed
Beneath
Yea’ he is my enemy
But here no malice
Remains
We are the same
We are the same
His hand caresses
The stone-hard bone
Again and again it moves
With slowburned delicious
Grace
Traces he upon the bone
His name
in
wet, with sweat
not tears
with sweat
not blood
writes he
Across the day
And through the years
Speaks he
He’s whispering my name
I’m whispering his
We are the same
We are the same
Brothers
With two eyes
Between
And three
In twain
Lahoon
Rebel Bone
is the name
7 Hands
The Third Hand Strikes
“Thirst”
Jabs at the tongue
Of this one
In a moment
A throat is cut
Like a bird cuts
The sky
Chemtrails
And a cloud parts
Dropping rain
Raining blood
*
She is the Sister
with the swollen eye
She is bleeding
And her blood flows blue
And bright
She arches, bends
Billows
And gives birth
To death
She is the night sky
New won
*
Between the instance of my willing it so
And the happening itself
There falls the blade
Slow, slower than the seasons change
One, two, three, and four
A drumbeat down below
Between the instance and the happening
One must will it so
Yet still I cut
And won’t be stopped
The blade drops
Fast I strike
The memory of it all
Of Black Maria
Lahoon, swoon Sorceror
And the boon of Bone
Informs, nay, is the striking
And it is good that it is so
The knife goes
The clouds burst
The sky parts
Darkens – I pray for the rain to come
But none does, though the sky
is dark as pitch
and down below
in a small temple made
of flesh and stone
there sits the villain
smugly so
under grayblack sky
It occurs to me now
In this moment
Floating about the sweating lodge
Where sits this man and bone
(Skullbone – the memory of murder)
That this is a lesson
And I am here to learn
And between this occurrence
And my descent, a voice
Speaks inside my mind
With clarity
Crystalline
Before the bones will walk
West over the horizon there
You must lay up your hopes
To eternity
And having done
Despair
Yet beyond despair
something
will undo
the knife
and sew
the tear
will lay the worm to ground
and shake the earthen lair
I listen closely
And I listen long
And I listen
Repeatedly
To the words
I listen on
And abruptly find
As I crash down
To red earth
This voice
Is mine
That voice
Is mine
That voice
And song
Disappear
Into the black clouds
beyond
8 Hands
The Second Hand Grasps
“Seconds”
pass as our lives
die away
Every day
Is human sacrifice
As hours pass
Is human sacrifice
As lives are laid up
For nothing
For illusions
For a lie
*
He is the Emperor
With the many hands
He is sweating
And his sweat shall never end
He reclines, rests
Crests, wanes
In a Lodge of Flesh
He is the moon and sun
Undone
*
There upon the total sky
a great altar wide stands
bright – light
eats light eats light
and makes a tabernacle
delight of all delights
the tabernaculum
bleeds white brightness
bleeds white hot
lovely light
Laymen all we down below
split quaternity, everything
here down below
split four times and four times
four
is not what it seems here
down below
Ludibrium
A mockery and a sport
It’s true yes
Spectacular theatrical
Sporting fun
All but for the blood
Which cannot lie
Nor would could it do
And this
My one hand reaching
Is true too
As too as that man is real
He there
Who may have killed the Diamond Girl
There across the way
Sweating, with his
Cloth-made crown
There he sweats
So near so far
Shall I rouse him?
Not yet
For he has not seen me
And surprise now is
all
I count
One
Two
The heartbeat
Is a drum
I hear
alone
I rise, my feet light and free,
And look for the happy blade
above
Hejana Nethai
I go but do not go
It is so, for
I am wishful
But no longer shy
Have come a long way to stare
at this
star-gorged
this split and bright darkened sky
So weirdly right
That it should be
Now above
Now below
The whole of me
So I will stare
And staring
Assuredly arise
to once again become
and becoming once more be
Eight yards hence
Now low
Arched angle
Low there, the suite
and sage
A wolf nearby
But not
(The wolf makes its home
in a den of wood and stone
hard born, hard it will die
There are few wolves
In North Dakota here
but those that glow blue
are here and everywhere)
And arched backwards
Supine near to split
There, sacrificial
Lies the Maid as she once was
There upon the tabernaculum
And there upon the sky
A sheet of light breaks out
A blade across the sky
A bolt of light, and lightning
Bolt
And knife
Aloft, I reach out
And one
Two three four five
Pluck it from the air
Pluck forth that wolf’s tooth of light
And hold it
Above her belly
For a second
For a second
For a time
I hold it
There
So high
9 Hands
The First Hand Reaches
“Civilization”
is a wound
still bleeding
Pregnant
She gives birth
Eternally
even as she bleeds
*
You are the Sorcerer
With the many hands
He is Rebellious
and rebellion ever stands
or crouches, waiting
sweating, bleeding
in a Lodge of Flesh
for the raging dawn
Waiting
for the light to come
*
See now in the distance
Sorcerer ye’
nine yards away
a small sacred mound of flesh
and wood
with smoke rising up
subliminally
There crouches
Face down
In the doorway
That flap of skin
A man who sweats
And sweats
And bleeds
Reflecting he
On sin
Now one step closer
One step toward him
Is a start
But not enough
Frozen then
unmoving
From his crouched pose
He raises a hand
The sky parts, black
buffalo skin sliced
from flesh and bone
and laid out over heaven’s
brow
He raises a finger
The earth shakes
And we shake
His left hand was in the dirt
Sodden, drummed down earth
He has lifted that hand
And pointed it to the sky
Now he moves his hand
And points to his right, open eye
From still nothing:
this
From his lips
this:
*
Hear then now of the battle
between the eagle and the condor
That of the Bone and the Sorcerer
Reborn with each passing line
Of 9 hands, attractive, and one
from the marrow shorn
Of slavery ancient, wickedness
overflowing throughout the land
where the homeless burn down
your homes
Of a war recent won
and babes hung by boughs
nailed there to die alone
squirming as they go
Oh woe
They are hanging the native men
Oh woe
This land belongs
to none
This human sacrifice
Sacrificial bones
From scaffolds fall
one to one to one
and the shit drips down
on newfound Christian soil
Oh woes
Of a great long tribal drumming
Upright hands, hands to the sky
Rebellious hearts can never die
And loyalty
Is paid in blood
Rivers flood til symbols drown
The upside: small, sour towns
built red upon the lie
Til comes a channeler
whose right hand withers dry
Against the coming tied
Against the bones
piled to the sky
he asks:
Who was the Diamond Maid?
And did she really die?
Who was the firstborn son?
And where now does he lie?
His asking
Splits the sky
His asking
Splits the sky
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