Many Musics, Seventh Series *part 4 of 4*

[cenacle]

Continued from:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-seventh-series-*part-3-of-3*/?action=post;msg=33594

li. Grass


Edgar Degas, "Girl Putting on Her Stockings," about 1877, monotype


Every hour of the day is a tiring one.
I hear rain, dream rain, rain has purpose,
I suppose, maybe several, float, fall,
pond. My new stockings are taut,
like I was—-oh shit. A knock. I ache.
Dreams of rain & rest. Falling to grass.


******


lii. God's Girl
Edgar Degas, "Woman with a Towel" pastel, 1894 or 1898.


The new one says I have a fairy's face
& a whore's physique. His towel is thick,
woven with money, leers softly upon my
skin. He hears my talk of God & asks
will God keep me when my breasts sink,
my ass thicks or thins. When he sees
me reading my books, he laughs, gestures,
I come to him. I let him knew secret things—-


******


liii. Occupy (i)


Go on, tell me I can't breathe here.
You've figured a way to govern air.
Go on, tell me I can't sleep here.
I don't matter & neither do my fucking dreams.
Go on, tell me I'm not fit to occupy.
There are many ways to burst heart & bones.


******


liv. 11/14/1981


The bloom I'd lay at your breast tonight
is & is not the one I held those hours,
touch, & there's still a tune. But if you don't,
as you did not then, there's still a tune.
Your young cheek, yes a bloom for you. My music,
no, I earned that for my own romances.


******


lv. PeaceLoveDove


You've become an open handful of light.
You've become a curled finger of ash.
You've become the star you always were;
A blue-eyed wink, & you are gone,
& you stay, & you stay, & you stay.


******


lvi. Tonight in Your Room


Later today, we will say our words &
bury your ashes. A dozen & a dozen faces
will gather who hadn't before, & you are gone
& you remain. Now it's 3 a.m. & cold in your room.


I lie in your one pillow bed, looking toward
the door you saw every morning for years.
Out there, your cherished ones. Beyond that,
the world. It's 3:02 a.m. & I weary.


Your guitars, your books, not a picture
on your walls. No curtains on the windows.
The light stirred you, woke you. Light &
some car swooshing past. You are gone,
those guitars now silent, this bed empty
but me passing through. It's 3:05 a.m. & one last.


Does a room keep its departed occupant
awhile? This building old, you weren't the first.
Did it try to warn you the morning of your
last day, or say goodbye, in a room's way,
bunching its air at the doorway, bursting
you through, slowing your scattered eye, your heaving breath?


******


lvii. Them Jellies


I don't hold evolution or just
a well-inspired cosmic artisan
to credit for what I witness floating
before me. I don't know what accounts
for its ligaments & lights. Many books
will explain & not convince. I remain,
by my preference, in wonder. And think,
more & more these days, how little
that matters benefits from tries at why.
Them jellies just float, in a tank
they did not make, for reasons they
do not know, they just light up & float.


******


lviii. Revelator


Letting you go, brother, is easy, because
you don't leave. A stretch of sunlight,
a horn from that attic window, words unsaid
in my head, laughing years & years old.


Letting you go to your fall, your ashes,
the molded paths preachers lure the
children in men by the fears in their dreams,
you dismissed it all but the tune. Long, lovely tune.


Letting you go to listening for your silent instrument,
ah, break my heart & you go on still. The spittle flies
as you cry it out, the strings bend & break,
the stars finally set & we all know how they return.


******


lix. Entangle


"       the world changes
if two look at each other and see
to love is to undress our names"
—Octavio Paz, Sunstone, 1957.


You laugh. You're dust in a courtyard, below
a plaque, in a box waiting further dispersal.
You laugh. "It matters & it doesn't. The tune
of a lover's heartbeat when she's close. That same
music, years on, another's arms. Nobody's."
You laugh. Because you know I'll climb
from these depths again &, when exhausted, return.


******


lx. Leucocyte


"If you plant ice
you're going to harvest wind"
—-Grateful Dead, "Franklin's Tower," 1975.


—-there will be music, there will be green.
But the ones gone are gone, enough.
Learning to hear them in tonight's melodies,
& then hearing otherwise some nights,
   & so finally lose the difference at last,
     is the new work.


February 18, 2012
Cambridge, Massachusetts




******

[cenacle]

*** Many Musics, X, li, Grass - Link: http://tinylink.net/AGO - I was thinking of a prostitute, and what dreams she might have . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lii. God's Girl - http://tinylink.net/Ow3 - Mysterious ending . . .
*** Many Musics, X, liii. Occupy (i) - This was in the early days of the Occupy movement, everything seemed possible then . . .
*** Many Musics, X, liv. 11/14/1981 - it was 30 years ago when this girl raised & broke my heart . . . still a flame within . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lv. PeaceLoveDove - My friend Jim Burke III died on November 30, 1981, and this poem came to me the next night . . . it holds still . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lvi. Tonight in Your Room - I slept in Jim's room the night before his funeral, not long after he died . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lvii. Them Jellies - went to New England Aquarium, and delighted by the jellyfish tank, wonderfully delighted . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lviii. Revelator - another one for Jim, a bit of unwinding in my words and music . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lix. Entangle - yet another one, starting to feel like my pen again . . .
*** Many Musics, X, lx. Leucocyte - trying to get above the water in my mind . . . swim on . . .

[cenacle]

continued here:
http://www.spiritplants.org/forums/the-library/many-musics-eighth-series-*part-1-of-4*/