Many Musics
(Third Series)

“Out here on the perimeter
there are no stars
Out here we is stoned . . . immaculate”
—The Doors, “The Wasp (Texas Radio & the Big Beat),” 1971.

i. Manifest

What won’t come is music half-called,
distracted, hungry hours, sunk in the province
of men. Lights, simmering smells, bread & stew.
Lure, of wine & silk. Someone nods & says
we’re mapping beauty, a hour nearer, a formula,
derived of striplings’ coos & closely tuned
compass. More smoke, distraction’s distraction.
Maybe the potion drunk an hour ago will able save the next.

Music half-called rings back in blind cries &
smoking metal. Sentiments & easy lusts.
Mapping beauty? another says. We can’t feed
ourselves & save the trees alike. What beauty
in a hungry child or a burnt acre? Legions
of men will be needed, maybe more than all
this world holds. Legions of men & centuries
of days before anything known, or we even begin.

Music, I call you now, from what I know
& much the rest, I call you now, music,
where you tend I will follow, what you
know I will believe. By star’s light &
dream glow will I map beauty, in songs
to manifest, music, I call to you now.
Each drift on his breeze, one wind, many winds,
one rhythm, one melody, many musics, hear my vow.

******


ii. Passing Water

Sing the hours true & know the hunger
is bound in breathing itself, its walls,
beams, what girds underneath. Breeze moves
each & all, one wind, many, & rains
fall with the ceaseless questions & some
answer. Want born, roots, thus musics bloom.

Next hill may show whatever the burning
smell in the air, or within heart’s bluest
scent itself, or where bound world’s greater
arc half risen. Sing the hours true,
chop wood, carry water, reck every hour’s
pulse of promise & ache, what stays, what going.

Ferment & strew, drifting lash on a curved
warmth, news of today’s annihilation in
god’s praise. Crack the wish to notice newly,
the long remembered page’s lean wisdom,
dream’s luring distant treeline. Every heart blows
through empty fields with obscure intent.

World manifests in you for its own reasons,
many, & none at all.

******


iii. Penury

World evolves an hour to a train’s slow
through grassland carrying new dead,
to a long-waited kiss in rainy light.
Music half-called, deep hungry words,
clear dreams of a dying man. A soldier
cursing the strange land’s heat, his own sad blood.

What to do next when the wind &
the lightning & the rainbow & the shutting
door? Any of it. What to do next?
Say the way is dis-illusion, call world
an effect, crack that wish to notice
newly? Manifest. Shit is beautiful too.

Look onto new years, their clustered
seeds, unmet faces, chances brambled
in mystery. Eternals touched in finishing
the song, & crawling the dust. Look back,
bravely, what spillt, what gone, calmly,
what lingers & what still it seeks through you.

******


iv. Clean

Leaves everywhere shake & I understand:
I know nothing.
Trees above drink of earth & shine alike:
I am nobody.
Human paths through hills & bushes decaying
the moment the pick draws away:
This hour is a gift to all & my sadness
is the struggle to share.

What answer is a tapping in our cells,
a deep rhythm, source of knowing &
nothing, move nearer, no why, move
on, sing, trust.

What answer in godless hands that
can shape dust to bullet & thus back
again, or shape dust to a prayer of thanks,
manifest a star in every seeking eye.

Leaves are shaking harder now, everywhere,
a language of both knowing & nothing,
a pickless path, this hour’s gift both
spent & unspending. Move nearer
the deep rhythm, sing, trust, move on.
No why & there never was.

******

v. Viva La Vida

Fear falls frozen dripping through
the heart, one & many wonder at
its breathless wall, its lump of god within.
How alone & why? Ask again. The cicadas
& bamboo too? Ancient astronauts taught
us this far & left, nodded, let go?

Want, taught to want, to feed one hunger
with another, to chase, to almost know,
hurry toward those brilliant years, sensuous
playing lights. Sabre tooth & bronts not
withstanding. Hunger, is it more complex
with more men, larger cities? Does any
who falls tonight triumph in finale,
glory for not an hour more?

Fear falls, frozen, dripping through the heart,
great galleries & long centuries,
preachers roar & kings thump. Comfort in
hovering together close over the abyss, align gazes
& call it love, or gesture to maps & libraries,
bullets, chalice, scripture, grave, solemn
nod their truth? Comfort in what hasn’t
slipped yet & touchless faith it will hold.

Questions mirror glance to glance, & highest
music only sighs & sings of full moons,
midnight tides, & the moment’s power
in warmth laying by warmth. Tonight
behold the wide world with all its fears,
howling & half-awake, no key to explain.
Behold the world, howling, half waking,
yet still no key to the smallest face or least star.

******


vi. Insurgo (6/19/08)

Old thoughts crowd the peak, obscure
both sky & valley. The years conspire
to narrow faith, harden & systematize
what it becomes. Worshipped words without
burn. How long stable this living machine?
Look to how dear men bear the crumble
of other centuries, & yet little reck
its warning. Old thoughts, on a familiar
train crossing a local river, some factory
crowds its edge. I witness this passing
hour in nod to its sky, its valley,
what treasure it keeps, what it passes along.

******

vii. Distant

Brave, bastardly brave, stupidly brave,
happily brave, let the countless musics
within bloom. Break narrow faith &
dreams of burning landscapes, win or lose
by what matters, struggle to share, & share.
Blowing scarce tonight, I pledge to my
returning tide, & what fineness still waits.

******

viii. A Night’s Raw Lyric

Sniff the fecund world from a hid,
ordinary place. Sniff its noise, an art,
a statecraft, the intense light draping
a high, hungry color. Sniff the lies
in calling the stars a heaven, in
praising what buries in earth as
carcass, as remain. Sniff the world’s
constant hungers, drying here, new
wetting up there. The world awful
with its making scents, where kind &
fine, where cruel, where flesh wilds
for flesh & not a coin, not a king,
not a god in any skies despite.

******

ix. Plumage

The world downs every man, one day,
some year. Slinking hours at a distance,
a smile in gauze, the trembling talk
of books. What fineness in hungers lost,
streets where shoulders knocked with
high plans, moon an ally, dawn's fresh page.

The years drown in watching the world
hustle many charms & lies, arguments
for answers, the blunt lure of flesh
for plumage, the driving, wild wish
for warmth. Drinking hours at a distance,
still wanting after what they didn't reveal.

Tonight, again, I know nothing. I am
nobody. Singing to manifest, crawling
the dust. Study the web, pray the hours.
Watch one may in a doorway guard his
plastic bags, thrown a coin by a couple
sparkling wetly with drink & easy thoughts
of silked mirrors, cuffs & cocaine, stereo moans.

Watch another fall from his seat,
others notice, flashing lights arrive.
Stumbled out to the curb, slumps with
a cigarette til a van & kind voice arrives.
Hours since: another man shovels in cheap
food where that one went down. Despair.

Tonight I still beat at narrow faith,
at vows thin of mystery & pleasure.
I am reaching for the hungrier words,
to sing, to burn, to reveal. New sounds
of the sea in my blood, next page,
the way on. Tonight I will not drown.


******

x. Twined Paths

Hope honey me again tonight, crush
between tips then fling me seeds
to the shadow & breeze—

The cafes & the woods are same for
the chase I keep, toward answers
that murmur & raise—

a travel past the hustle of a man's
deepest lies made law, music & tragedy
of a laughing boozy half-harnessed tit—

Hope hunger me again tonight, press
toward one stream these hard-twined paths,
answers to release the beast & explain the blow.

******

xi. Prayer

Night flashes through me, an anxious
traffic, among human spillage from taverns,
raw from hours beggaring men for needs.
Dreams to come of hawks high on
empty arroyos, & babies a soft mystery
in my arms, of tomorrow's fractured news.

Universe, I am asking again for help,
& strength, for the best of what's left in me.


******

xii. Kryptos

Where the strength to elude the Beast
& win the hour? Mend fractured wishes
into Beauty, slip through heart's hungry
maze, blow up in new song? Neither
slave to a passing struggle nor a helpless
moan blaming coin, king & cunt for defeat?

World blooms through wars, through every
flesh's cry & fall. Blooms, waits, invites
each & all. Through the hours won, lost,
& abandoned, world blooms, open hand,
a wish for each, no matter what
I am, no matter what you are.

******

xiii. One Song

Someone sang, “Knowledge sums endless,
wisdom ever gives way.” He pointed
to the countless drummers & their dancers
crying up the dust. Nodded, sang again,
just a word, “Beguiled,” & fell into the storm.

As I followed him into the desert, &
then ceased to follow, the songs left me
slowly, the apologies, the love chants,
the cries against crown & preacher.

As I ceased to follow, & ceased to look
apart from stars & mountains & ground,
I also ceased to care for the little mantras
of man, let them go a flake at a time:

“Peace brings more rewards than war
ever could.” “Love over money.”
“Power handled with caution, always
looking at its effects.” “Nationhood
a comfort, not an ideology.” “The world
does not belong to men & women,
but we belong to each other.”

What remained, what I am, having
ceased, what is until all is not,
is one song, sung by every man & woman,
every rock & tree, every planet & star,
every insect, virus, alien, ant, & whorl,
everything everywhere, one song,
I am coming in an unknown hour,
I am singing every hour until then.

******


[to be continued]

Previously added Many Musics, III, #1, Manifest, which I'd call a song to keep going. Today added #2, Passing Water, which I'd say is an observation on life, on what I see, weird as it may be. Me or life or both, heh.

This afternoon added Many Musics, III, #3, "Penury," every so often I write a song of hope, simple hope, complex hope, needed hope.

now and then we're able to channel hope
gotta let it shine
sacred duty

tonight added Many Musics, Third Series, iv, Clean, the simple story is i was in the woods and high on nature, and these are the words that came out...i don't think they need any other elaboration...

Tonight added Many Musics, Third Series, #5, "Viva La Vida," this poem began with the line "fear falls frozen dripping through the heart" and then I was also very much into the new Coldplay album whose title I borrowed for this poem's title. About fear, about what we live with but do not know why.

today added Many Musics, III, #6, "Insurgo (6/19/08)," I was riding a train through Portland, thinking old thoughts, not knowing in days I'd be laid off from my job and the lazy comfort I felt in the world when I'd written this poem would, much of it, be gone for awhile...some longer...

joy of moving, nostalgic salute to scenery left behind
feels like a february state of mind

this afternoon added Many Musics, III, #7, "Distant," this one is simple, I'd just lost my job and needed to vow to myself that better days would come if i was bastard-stubborn enough to get to them.

i love the thought of 'returning tide'

i have a feeling my tide's a long way coming

Tonight added Many Musics, III, #8, A Night’s Raw Lyric, I think often of the many hungers at the root of the world, and how society will cover it, channel it, deny it, legislate it, damn it, but never, ever undo it.

This morning added Many Musics, III, ix, Plumage, this was a pretty dark poem, it seemed like everywhere I looked there was struggle and decay. I could only think to fight it off in my heart with my pen and notebook.

This morning added Many Musics, III, x, Twined Paths . . . "release the beast and explain the blow" should be the title of my autobiography, or my directive to human purpose...

This morning added Many Musics, III, xi, Prayer . . . life is such a struggle sometimes...and other times it's just the opposite...

universe
come over
tea and back-up
you know you wanna

(cenacle - a variation of a prayer - once said, even i feel better)