Chorus (11 page)

You and me are one and the same

There is no shame, babe, no shame

No, not Heaven, but on the way

Through the darkness and into the caverns,

that breath on your face

Don't listen to it, sweetheart

We're on the cusp, the frontier, nearly there

There— the surface is there— feel with your toes,

your fingers curled

And speak with your auburn hair to love

Answer the grayness with locust breath

Ruined
, rotten, blood on your forehead

Dyes your fleshy silk hair red

See no more I lost you in all these dark
currents

So what has become of you now?

Where have you gone and how could I follow?

We
follow
the
whiskey trail

to the garden of believers

we ignore cries of foolish

and tune in the receivers

we build our towers higher

than those that came before us

and above angry voices

we recite
faithful
chorus

Fuck God

where you

find her

and call it

a day.

The tragedy

that begat

the Sun

made light

of lesser things.

It was an explosion.

First in heart.

Now at hand.

This tree's blood

is painted on.

The guilt

that I feel

is freedom.

Jesus was

the only magic

we believed in.

The cigarette

that tricked us

into breathing.

An excuse to sing.

Anthemic

woodwind

hollow

as crown

fall

through

the octaves

glide

over ground

and come

to me.

SONG IN ME MINOR

I feel

so close

to nothing

when I pray.

I cross

my legs

and crucify

each day.

I share

this blood

with everyone

I meet

and

kick her

when she tries

to wash my feet.

We drank

red wine

to cancel out

our fears

but sober kisses

tend to always taste

like tears.

I know you breathe fire like a dragon

posted like bullets into the hearts

of small children

and this rage never-ending is yours to keep

entirely forever entirely forever entirely

cannot be undone within the strangeness

of my lifetime

Breathe slow my parent

One day the moss covering your face

will be swept away

You will sing poems

washed in the basin

of life

You will clear out

all frozen blood clots of hate

surrounding that heart

which is yours

I imagine your face

superimposed over Buddha's

ten-foot-tall stone thousand-year-old

prayer

Maybe Buddha was an angry father too

previous incarnation

I am superimposing your face, Dad

over the face of Buddha

to awaken your own child

interior within self's temple

your own

there

Do you hear him

still chanting father's name

still chanting machismo terror to cling toward something

lest his personality self be destroyed

or that prayer then

on Buddha's lips

is compassion awakened

this heart flowering now

that child need chant no more

let each lotus blossom wiggle

inside his mind

eventually we are one

somewhere

our ribs are touching

Bless tenderness always

Bless country music

and ruthless ignorance

where
America
gathers in a religion

of pain and glory

Bless cock worship and rodeo mind

Bless Budweiser and dominos as pure expression of karma

All embraced in infinite sound

mind never-ending

even racist high school football stars have Buddha nature

And this much I saw once

I believe

in the back door

of our home

you standing naked as you often did

eyes wondering

splayed out to the ocean's twinkling

twenty miles away

as if the ask the universe:

Who am I?

Maybe its answers may come to you now

as they never did

from gin tonics

or gambling wheel obsessions

mouth always ready for the next tit nipple

all you were doing

was chasing after yourself in the dark

spinning on an endless wheel

hoping luck would make your number hit

like riding a bicycle with no chain

only you kept believing it was there

Gate Daddy Gate

Para Gate Daddy

Parasvam Gate Daddy

Bodhi Svaha

I imagine Buddha

smoking a Kent cigarette

and it is you

Overwhelmed

by the upheaval of souls

I
stretch

further than land

and sea

to muddle

my essence with these

The
mass

of my
irreverence

is benign

compared to all

the flourish made

by the winds.

In the rhythmic

fueling
of
my
catharsis

I shred to light

the beholder stealthily

and consume my wish

to be one

of a shield

to the peace

of all.

Ignited

to
vanish

in
a glimpse

of crept-tall

flare blossom

between light

and shadow.

Fixing initiative

of incongruous art

as such as

dust

we will

become.

dig

a
little
harder

deeper

dig

a little faster

keep on

dig

until morning tugs

at your backbone

and sweat stings sun licks

on the tender of your flesh

don't
surrender

dig

until your knuckles begin to rouge

and the tips of your fingernails bend

back

this can't break you

still

keep on

digging

dig

with bare hands

and prayer knees

dig

with dry tongue

and withered clothes

dig

with
ripe
eyes

and cracked heels

dig some more

don't give up

dig
heavy

     for broken mirror glass,

     rusty spoons,

     or doll legs

     
for
ship sails

     angel casts

     
broken chariot pieces

     a sequined dress

dig

          
for
drum hide

cigarette ash

emptied vials

Boogie Man's shoes

or a
sparrow's bones

dig

for quarters

tucked in the sole of your left shoe

dig
for the choke

in the song's last breath

dig at ink letters

until the spines of books twist back

dig
into night

'til you naked the sun

keep on

digging

dig

'til you can piece yourself

back together again

when I say you remind me of a book's broken back,

pages half-sewn and a coffee ring on its face or

that moment in half-morning where the sun is hesitant

or
after the ground's been cried upon and everything

is soft and open
or holding the earth's guts in palm

just to feel alive amidst all this concrete, my god, what

I mean to say is this song is an off strum and I like the way

it hits my ears sideways and how I might be cold and you'll

put your coat around my shoulders like the movies and

I'll show my teeth and say, who spilled molasses

over the window,

making the day golden? You'll say, beautiful is a dead word

and I'll say, so let's invent, they tell us that star up there blew out

ages ago and you'll say, but it still holds 10,000 wishes

tonight alone and we'll want to sing with our voices turned

on backwards, we'll want to laugh so hard we forget to

ask why and then lose any use for that word, too.

I wanted to say something beautiful

How we've turned garbage into gold

How we made a swamp fertile land

How we turned a curse into a blessing

How we made a nigger Black

Wanted to say something

That would make us stand up

And be proud

With the sun shining on our faces

And in our hearts

I wanted to say

But the day wouldn't let me

And the skies were too gray

The air was choking my dreams

And all the smiles

On the faces of my people

Had turned to frowns

Are we so loving

That we love what hates us

That we love what breaks us

That we love the pain

That twists our minds into creatures

-we can't even recognize

Are we so strong

That we play being weak

I wanted to say something beautiful

That would lift us up

Kick depression to the curb

And walk tall

In the middle of the storm

But the storm is raging

And we are tossed about

Like rag dolls

Played with by children of dogs

And we allow this

And dance with this noise

And
call it music

Dress up in the debris

Of a shattered world

Where broken bodies and broken hearts

And blisters from a swollen lie

Infect our world with disease

And yet we are the only cure

For a world gone mad

If we could stop and see and smell

The flowers we planted long ago

Ah I wanted to say something beautiful

But ugly like a brick in my path

Keeps tripping me up

Causing me to fall on my face

And make me forget

How beautiful we can be

WE.

flesh and flood fetuses

fed breath through blood,

board this hemo
globe

with no boats to boast

we float.

WE.

float til we are born

'less we be bloated

with a fire to flee

the ocean of our Mother.

SHE.

a complex of

refuge
- ease.

her body

of water

begins and ends us

a full circle

bodacious and round

even when
earth
was flat.

WE.

this amniotic nation

native to wading

strong-willed,

born to be wild

and bewildered,

will build ark

upon her

when splintered by her bleeding.

SHE.

Part God.

Part Daughter.

whole fish.

and bone sacrifice.

WE.

must swim. for a living.

After Birth

is the new After Life.

when you don't remember how.

yes YOU.

remember?

there was water in her bodies.

way before there were all these bodies in her water.

SHE.

who reflects
THE INVISIBLE
.

is temptress

to Sea Men

those who could not foresee us

from their Big Ships

and britches

And bridges;

we burn them.

who needs them

when we are them?

THEY.

who cross us all the time,

forget that the passion of the ocean

raises her children

to be

volcanoes
of the sea

watch the lava in our eyes

come to a slow boiling point.

Her next wave will be high

and THEY.

who Love Bait

more than Fish

will never discover us.

remember.

they.

only discovered

drowning

Independent thoughts

drowned out

machine gun fire and