Many Musics, Third Series *Part Two*

[cenacle]

Many Musics, Third Series

Continued from http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/index.php?topic=3211.msg21532#msg21532

xxxi. Dead End


I ask: wherefrom? No. Ask again: whither on?
No, worse. Ask: why the best of many centuries
but ghosts in books, their light & lives offered in
mere songs of endurance, beggaring to be remembered?
I ask: has anything changed but the slaves' names
& the kinds of toil? I ask, lastly, if the dust
blowing past is for burial or new spark?


******


xxxii. Siguiriya


When you begin to elude fear & doubt hope,
  heed what oncomes, despite.
When you nod with others in the amber-smoked
  room, avoid what pulsates, what lures,
  want unsated, these many centuries of men.
When some year, some quietly violent hour
  comes that you reck the trees new, all
  beauty, but no example, save endurance.
When those lean near who offer an answer
  in cards, coins, patterns of stars, the shape
    shit steams on the earth, what wonder in man.
When the faces cackle too many nights
  in drink, in waiting, in calling wisdom
    what tickles the skin, the rest is music.
When there is no solid ground, when
  not even music, old sure friend, then
    sleep, wager the remain in dreams.


******


xxxiii. When Nothing Else


I know I share with you that hour
  when you too were abandoned,
somewhere a nod, a phone call, a reason
  or two enough. You walked through streets
too, beneath stars, quiet despairing,
  the answer not now or ever to come why.
Time passed, new fruit grew, but always
  now that tinge of something, that linger,
that slim fissure of sad. Tell it in words
  tonight tells nothing. What you know &
the less for it, what I know & struggle around.
  Something else too, this nod between us,
this empathy we could brew like a tea,
  this breathing, this endurance, this crack between hearts.


******


xxxiv. Endurance


Dust, a violent hour, endurance. Crack
  between hearts, a silence, like a burial
in breath. Tonight trembles sweetly to one
  touch, salts blindly another's eyes. Violent
hour, dust, endurance. Tonight reck the
  remaining bones of a belief, of a love, reck
what green rides old cracks high. Endurance,
  violent hour, dust. What rises with the light,
what crosses the moon, what sings shores
  empty of men tonight, a wish, a riddle, a truth.


******


xxxv. Imaginal Space


What rises with the light, crosses the moon,
  what sings shores empty of men tonight,
a wish, a riddle, a sooth. A moving space,
  a moveable space. Call it imaginal space.
One music, many musics, the porous ground
  to any staying cry of human truth.


Tonight reck the remaining bones of any
  belief, any love, any fire not fed by
the hour. Reck what green rides old
  cracks high, what oncomes a torrent,
violent hours. Endurance. Dust. The dreams
  their caterwaul but who would listen?


Call it imaginal space, the shifting crack
  between hearts, a wish, a riddle, sooth.
One music, many musics. Asked what tool is
  this, say what needed? A salve, a meal,
knowing the tongue of the galaxies themselves?
  The challenge is to see tonight's glowing door


by the morrow's plain light, see, & step through.


******


xxxvi. Imaginal Space (ii)


Toward the morrow's plain light,
  the bursts of darkness along its hours,
the finely strummed gestures rent by
  a fumbled faith in mystery. A trip back
into the junk of common truths. Common
  truths, able to brick up a wall or
score a small rift of power. Common truths,
  bursts of darkness. When the lace is shed,
behold an easy wet cunt or a lightning to ride through?


******


xxxvii. Long Exhaust


If I had, because I loved you, because
you possessed, if I had, the night crackling
with your crimson scent, if, the year a leaden
one for men even as every youth burned high,
nearer, nearer, the mystery of that room
you slept in, plush & posters & icons to denial,
now hush as I do, & sweet that you are,
another room of voices as we, but call this
my hour, hush, no denial, hush, no lost
years, hush, youth most like the gods of men,
for a moment our hearts crack & time itself burns.


******


xxxviii. Tonight's Questions


Why electrify an animal with consciousness?
Why point his eyes toward the stars as he shits?
Why make fucking the stuff of grunt & prayer?
Why let him speak knowing in lies & truths?
Why the rift from nature, urge to know, consume?
Why the dread path to demise with dreams of escape?


******


xxxix. Electricity


Offered the elixir, you drink, & now
  the stars familiar & the trees shaman.
Her body living starlight to the touch &
  the farthest dreams close upon this petal.
This petal, this moment, this forever
  moment & the music consumes you.
The water she feeds you crackles with
  knowing, the grass is friend, the drums
every heart's glad yearning tongue. Come
  morning, the daylight of get & shove,
the hole in hours burned by coins,
  & explained by some men as penance,
as test, as deferred promise for someday's
  great, golden land of light. Come
morning & you wonder: "what is it
  for? Should I have drunk? Come
morning, something's missing, important,
  it was there last night, in her
crystalline smile, in the moment when
  you forgave all, knew all was well,
breathed, relaxed. Missing . . . missing?
  You've drunk the elixir, you are awake
now, walk the earth, sober or laughing,
  til you find it, or were wrong, & let go.


******


xl. The Stars, While Shitting


In desert, the far blowing desolation
  hearts know, squat in plastic box,
thumping sounds of immolation & ecstasies
  without, I sat with a puzzling book
& read its first lines. Suffer, it said,
  this is why you suffer, this canquer
of want in you, each of you, name
  it a god of devil, this is why
you suffer, that you live from first
  cry riven & crawl your years to be
whole, that you cry up love into
  myth to keep it a step away, that
you litigate desire for its blind,
  brutal wish, build great towers & temples
of distraction, cage your every last soul
in discontent, in bitterest hunger,
this is why you suffer. My shit
  came sudden & raw & the plastic ceiling
above my head exploded, the stars
  fell in on me, I was a moment
so beautiful & dead. Yes, this is why
  we suffer, for the shattering moment
when nothing makes sense, & we finally nod.

******

Continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/index.php/topic,5614.msg32833.html#msg32833

[cenacle]

*** Many Musics, III, xxxi, Dead End, thinking on this now, I don't even think the kinds of toil change much . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxii, Siguiriya, title is an old form of dance, content is slow despair of a moment . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxiii, When Nothing Else, crying out with and for empathy . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxiv, Endurance, more melancholic music . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxv, Imaginal Space, title is something I see as the space where possibility lies, nothing sure perpetually, open skies and doors . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxvi, Imaginal Space (ii), this poem written during days where I struggled for depth and beauty . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxvii, Long Exhaust, remembering a girl I loved long ago, what never was . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxviii, Tonight's Questions, questions that still stay with me . . .

*** Many Musics, III, xxxix, Electricity,  addressing the first question in xxxviii, always the question of the elixir. . .

*** Many Musics, III, xl. The Stars, While Shitting, addressing the second question in xxxviii, an old desert memory . . .