Poems from The Village Reading

IN THAT YEAR...

In that year we had a great visitation of energy.

Back in those days everything
was simpler & more confused.
One summer night, going
To the pier, I ran into
2 young girls. The
blonde was called Freedom,
the dark one, Enterprise.
We talked, & they told
me this story.

& THE COOL FLUTTERING

    & the cool fluttering rotten wind
    & a child's hand-print on
      picture window
    & the guncocked held
      on the shoulder.
    & fire in the night
      waiting, in a darkened house
      for the cruel insane breed
      from town to arrive
      & come poking thru smoke
      & the fuel & ashes for milk
      & the evil leer on their faces
        barking w/ triumph
    Who will not stop them?
    The hollow tree, where
      we three slept & dreamed
      in the movement of
      whirling shadows & grass
    Tired rustle of leaves
    An oldman stirs the dancers
      w/ his old dance
    darkening
swift shadows lean on the
      meat of forest
      to allow breathing

Gently they stir
Gently rise
The dead are new-born
  awakening
w/ ravaged limbs
& wet souls
Gently they sigh
  in rapt funeral amazement
Who called these dead to dance?
Was it the young woman
  learning to play the "Ghost
  Song" on her baby grand
Was it the wilderness children?
  Was it the Ghost-God himself,
  stuttering, cheering,
  chatting blindly/
  --- I called you up to
      anoint the earth.
      I called you to announce
      sadness falling like
      burned skin
      I called you to wish
      you well, to glory in
      self like, a new monster
      & now I call on you
      to pray:

LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF MY COCK

Lament for my cock
Sore & crucified
I seek to know you
acquiring soulful wisdom
you can open walls of
mystery
strip-show

How to get death
On the morning
show

T.V. death
which the child absorbs

death-well
mystery
which makes
me write

Slow train
The death of my cock
gives life

Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode
to my cock
caress its lament
stiffen & guide
us

Lost cells
The knowledge of cancer
To speak to the heart
& give the great gift
words

power

trance

This stable friend
& the beasts of his zoo
wild, haired chicks
each color connects
to create the boat
which rocks the race

could any hell be more
horrible than now
& real

"I pressed her thigh
& death smiled"

death, old friend
death & my cock
are the world

I can forgive
my injuries
in the name of
wisdom

luxury

romance

Sentence upon sentence.
Words are healing.

Words got me the wound
& will get me well

If you believe it.

All join now in lament
for the death of my cock
a tongue of knowledge
in the feathered night

boys get crazy in the head
& suffer
I sacrifice my cock
on the altar
of silence

A WAKE

A wake
Shake dream from you hair
      My pretty child, my sweet one
Choose the day, & the sign
      of your day,
      1st thing you see.

A burnt tree, like a giant
      primeval bird, a leaf,
dry & bitter, crackling tales
      in its warm waves.
Sidewalk gods will do for you.
      The forest of the neighborhood,
The empty lost museum, &
The mesa, & the Mt.'s pregnant
Monument above the newsstand
      where the children hide
            When school ends

CURSES & INVOCATIONS

Weird bait-headed mongrels
I keep expecting one of you
                  to rise
large buxom obese queens
garden hogs & cunt
              Veterans
quaint cabbage saints
Shit horders & individualists
drag-strip officials
Tight-lipped losers
& lustful fuck salesmen
My militant dandies
all strange order of monsters
hot on the trail of the
                    wood vine
We welcome you to our
                Procession

THE CROSSROADS

Meeting you at your parent's gate
We will tell you what to do
What you have to do
to survive

Leave the rotten towns
of your father
Leave the poisoned wells
& bloodstained streets
Enter now the sweet forest

I WALKED THRU...

I walked thru the panther's living room
And our summer together ended
      Too soon
Stronger than farther
Strangled by night
Rest in my sun burst
Relax in her secret wilderness
This is the sea of doubts
which threads harps
      unwithered
      & unstrung
Its the brother, not the past
who turns sunlight into glass
It's the valley
It's me

Testimony from
a strange witness

THE FLOWERING

The flowering
    of god-like people
in the muted air
    would seem
        strange
to an intruder
of certain size

but this is all we have left
    to guide us
Now that He is gone

THE WILD WHORE LAUGHS

The Wild whore laughs
    like an ancient spinster
Crone, we see you, come again
    in the mind
I lie like fever
    Dancing your nubile hush
willing to be possessed
    untold stories
        dare injuns rise
Trampled, like red-skins
    sacred fore-skin
Cancer began w/ the knife's
    cruel blow & the damaged
rod has risen again
    in the East
        like a star
            on fire