Music

Hammer, Nails, Earth, Light

We were, weren’t we?
The opening power chord of the concert,
the thing that deafens the crowd as they cheer for it.

Perhaps, over time
(even in the beat and the offbeat, I feel this),
it’s more like a jazz quartet,
finding all the right grace-notes.

I mean, really- think about it. Just think of it!
All the kitchens in the world no two ever danced in.
What a waste.

But then, I too have shunned life’s gifts,
running headfirst into the wind,
my back to the sun, my face to the shadows.

How they tell us to be. And how we become.

The beat of the heart, of the drum? No. Not for you.

NOT FOR YOU

But, wait, wait… I soared wildly into the night once,
and there among the confusions and hellfires-
there, a lighthouse in this sea of blackness.

How could I not change my tack?
What else would call so brightly?
There is, in fact, an answer.
My own compass, imparted at birth,
long forgotten,
was pressed into my hand.

“I lost my way once, as well,” she said.

These things new and forgotten
were merely of the harmonic,
of the consonant, of life and death;
and of our wings,
which always grow back given the right medicine.

If you’re reading this, whoever you are,
I hope at least once you know
the salvation hidden in the least-expected soul.

You think you know love-
until you actually know love.

We rise out of the ground- all of us
-for a moment (a moment!),
looking up wildly into the stars,
daring the infinite,
before we descend together back down into the earth.

So speak it then, all you-
speak my apostasy into the airwaves.

Even more than this,
more than the perfect publicity,
more than the grand overtures,
more even than these comforts,

I would ask of nothing but her grace.

For which is better?

The glass of whiskey,
smashed on the floor in the back of the bar,
the fire in the eyes,
the unsaid unsaid UNSAID,
the staring each other down in the midst of the storm?
The endless slow-death?
(all this does lay foundations, it’s true)

Or… the hand, laid upon the other’s head,
in those moments when all hope seems lost?
(do you see?)

The fire has purged us both, then;
and whoever you are-
if you’re reading this,
remember what I said on the other side:

I could curse the darkness we both walked through;
but far better in this, I think,
whatever the road,
is to build a house made of her light.

1.618034

I have offered up my lamentations
out of the dust of Eden
and painted them into the night.

I have trodden stars underfoot
and crushed them
into the wine of singularities.

(so my younger self told me in a dream,
reaching forward in the temporal
as I now enter the embrace of the world
and age into my slavery)
I’d pay good money to hear what yours told you.

Shall we build a fire then, in this desolation,
and brand me with the aspect of shadow?
How shall we brand you?

If Pride were ground into powder,
I suspect it could then be an anointing
upon this corruption;
perhaps even an atonement-
simple enough, yes?

Enough.

Show me then-
come, show me,
while there is still some serenity;
let us examine your engines of the dark
and the nightmare-fuel within
(are you watching closely?
energy equals matter
times the speed of light squared).

Drift you now to the far shores,
sleep, and dream,
drift with your own permission-
for a song of this magnitude radiant
shall fly only to constellations;
was meant only for the season of sowing.

Do you not see how alive you are?
And do we have an according then, you & I?

For as I see all hands open
in these songs of light and dark,
and music woven out of silence cleansed
in the cloudwalk ascendant,
purified in the cosmotic night,
washed in the blood of the earth;
so do I see you dare to direct your gaze
up.

Now
take my lantern
and I’ll hold your hymns-

say it’s a good trade.
(it’s a good trade)

Behold then:
the field opening verdant in its laughter,
bathed in blossomscent,
how even the black dirt and red clay
sing under the sun
in their rushing to meet the mountains;

for winter will come again,
and still all will sing,
still all will sing.
Come,
for the river is deep, and wide;
the water clear, and cool.
I tell you my grace and yours was bartered between us
in these bending waves of wildwheat.

Have you forgotten?
This is an accord, in fact,
with the song aureate in all things.

I know you can hear it.

The dark washes off so easily,
so easily, my love,
so easily.

There was an old father in the desert,
a long time ago,
(have you heard this one?)
who stretched his hands toward heaven,
and told his disciple
as his fingers turned to dancing fire,

“If you will,
you can become all flame.”

Thanotic

This is the final note,
this is where it all ends,
this is where it all goddamn ends.
And ends.
And ends.

This is the song divergent,
this is the souls’ reaping exigent;
this is the last pace before bloodlet-

ironscent tang in the dust
mingled,
oh yes.

This is the echochord of a sunset lightbreak;
this is your eulogy,
this is where you die.

This is where you
take
one
more
step-

for flame breeds fresh ash
and ash breeds a fertile ground.

Keep watching.

Exhalant

Stop. Shut it all out,
if you can.
I promise you won’t die.

Even the sun must set,
ships must be moored,
dogs come into the house,
oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange;

and garments of the day fall
so the blankets of night
can cover the dreams
of 100,000,000 minds.

The world wishes you not to sleep, nor to rise
(what a pitiful thing that cannot make up its mind)…

I can, though.

So kiss me as you will:

like a calculation of space
enumerating the differential
under the curve,

like a bonfire
writhing
in the apocalypse,

or even, if you prefer,
like the owl flies-
hunting softly in the dark.

Inheritance

If you go out into the land,
towards the wild, into the realm of no realm
with nothing but your own gospel,
as a disciple would:

First, unplug your devices. Shut them off.
I’m serious- put all that shit in your desk.
It’ll make you deaf and I’m, unfortunately,
speaking from experience.

Because then, if you’re careful,
if you’re quiet,
you have at least a chance to recover
what you’ve lost.

(if you’re alone, good
if you’re not, so be it
if you have a little one with you, hold their hand)

-listen-

Green things are sprouting from the ground in song
and voices of thunder gather on the horizon.

now this is where you say

“Shhh.
Close your eyes.
Can you hear them?
Can you hear them?”

What are they saying?
Can you hear them?

Leaf on the Wind

[I]

Could be my heart’s a heavy idol
slowly tearing out of my body,
to be placed at the altar of Shadow.
Maybe not.
In time, then,
I will make pilgrimages and offerings.

So we pass into the unwritten season.

But wind it back if you like,
the clock,
if only to hear me say

I would help you walk, someday.

[II]

Would you gather my bones
in your embrace,
one last time?

Then lay them to nourish the earth.

If you can hear them sing,
then come to me;
come sit, and listen with me.

If the songs I’ve given in this life
haven’t been enough,
come listen then to the song of my bones,
that you may see cleared a path
to the cliffs of your heart
and dive headfirst into the maelstrom of grace
that awaits you.

I would see you untense your shoulders again,
and laugh until your face rains
before you leave the living of the earth.

Is this like drinking darkness?
You must do that sometimes.
We all must.

If you will it,
this becomes fuel for the light.

[III]

Come, then.
Sit.
Listen.

The secret:
the whole cosmos
is made of music,
and you & I
are fleeting consonant harmonics,
waves embracing in the echo-

watch how we soar.

Prowl

I ride on the edge of the night,
where sacred-looking things arise
from power lines and signals of the civil-

doesn’t the wolf come sometimes
to the edge of the city?

So I feel alive and electric in the neon,
merely from contact and rhythm;
we are wired for this.

claws click on sidewalk pavement

Yet
I still need the full-breath,
the long-hale up from the blood,

the consonation

and synchronizing hum of your body
rising from the earth,
dripping with mud,
calling to the darkling beyond dream.

Skirting the trail,
sowing and conjuring then I traverse time and space;
it smells wet and rank-sweet in here,

but this hunt
isn’t really a hunt,
is it?

I can hear you
from my bones out
to the stars.

I wander home, alone in the descent of sacred things;
I wander home, alone,
riding on the edge of the night.

Bailaro

Once, a while ago, when the rhythm took me,

(sorry, sorry, sorry,
lo siento, mea culpa;
have you seen all the ways
we learn to apologize
for being alive?)

it was Los Lobos,
and it was Spring,
and I was in the kitchen,
and I was told to stop screwing off.

The next day, I drove past a graveyard.

Most days now,
I’m guilty of screwing off.
(especially where rhythm is concerned)

Lo siento.

Words

What can I say about you
that wasn’t already said
by Monet’s brush,
by Gibran’s pen,
by Carter, opening Tutankhamen’s tomb,
by Einstein’s math,
by my mother’s hands,
or by my dog’s tongue?

What can I possibly describe about you
that wasn’t already given to me
in the absolution of the wild,
that wasn’t felt by my sister
on the first horse she mounted,
by my father
the first time he wandered the woods alone?

What on earth
can my heart not say these days
as it pulses fragments of dead stars
to my eyes,
that I might turn them
on the night sky, itself
half-made of dead stars?

What can you show me
that is not in itself
a miracle?

And what can I say to you
that does not come out
“we are here for the space of a breath,
beloved,
and no more”?