THE WINDS OF CHANGE

THE WINDS OF CHANGE

We had been traveling for many days.

The far lands still seemed as far away

As ever.  Everyone looked young, ready

To devour whatever might be placed

Before us.  We had a million ideas.

From the evening hills, just before the dark

The purple winds could be seen gathering.

We had no idea what they were, only that

They seemed ominous and unwelcoming.

By the time they were upon us all was

Confusion.  I could not see past my own 

Hand.  Voices could be heard but it was

Impossible to identify anyone because 

The wind claimed even their voices.

We had no idea when the wind passed,

Only that we were no longer young, that

It was harder to see due to the dust

In the air.  We were scattered but still

Traveling.  We tried to regroup, to find

Our friends from before the winds.

The sun was much less bright, so many 

Looked familiar.  The dogs had wandered off.

TASTING THE DIRT

This poem was part of my MFA thesis back in the late 1980's.  It has remained a favorite of mine and I think I should read it at readings more often.  I haven't read it in public for years.

TASTING THE DIRT

Not speaking the language,

I spoke in another language.

What speaks?

Does it speak for the heart?

Does it speak for time?

Is this the part of morning?

Must we always question

With desire, unhinged and hanging

Like a hook into samsara?

Will we find a mouth

In touching the edges of our dreams,

Feeling them like cloth used

To wrap the body, used to stop

The weeping, used to carry us

From loving, somehow children

Again and able to understand everything?

Will we be able to stand here with one

Another, spinning through our lives,

Fire, a metaphor, our clothing, a metapohr,

The great halls of our hearts,

A metaphor, dancing this way,

A metaphor.

Save us from other meaning,

From knowing our visions

As anything other than the singing

That they are, from the clumsy

Fabric we assemble to show

That we are the loved ones of time.

Yes, the night does come and

It is beautiful and the day too, we

Wear around us, weather, the

Reflection of all our emotions,

Clouds, our thoughts describing

The mystery of being here.

And yes, the sky is such a brilliant blue.

I shall know you forever.

There is no ground to stand that

Is not ourselves.  There is no sound

That is not language.  Not speaking

The language, I speak in this peculiar way,

So you may know I am among you.

SONG

Patrick Grizzell and I sang this song together long ago.

SONG

We are drifting over plains.

We are prisoners of the wind.

There is nothing we can say.

There is no place to begin.

We are higher than the clouds.

It’s a thing we can’t explain.

When we touch inside each other

It is very like the rain.

We are standing in the music.

We are always making love.

We do not expect forever.

We are always making love.

We are drifting over plains.

We are prisoners of the wind.

There is nothing we can say.

There is no place to begin.

WE HAD BEEN WALKING

WE HAD BEEN WALKING

We have been walking out here

For a very long time.  The dark

Colored glass of this valley

Was making us sick.  It might

Have been the smell that roiled

Through dressed like a five year

Yearning for blind angels to

Ministrate to us about the great

Mysteries.  

God, she looked

So beautiful as the ornaments

Of sleep crept into her face.

We couldn’t stay here any longer

Let alone wait for the great

Wings to show us what was

Really meant by those circles

Beaten into the stones telling

Us to love all things.  There was

Unrest in the weather.

We watched them cock their

Rifles and come down the rows.

NIGHTINGALES

Josefa de Obido-O Cordeiro Pascal 

Joseph Noel Paton 1821-1901

NIGHTINGALES

Summer breaks its face on my arm.

I can’t remember how your mouth

Felt on mine.  How your hand was

When I put my lips on your fingertips.

My heart dances on my spine, fooling

Me into believing that love has a name

That sounds like yours but ends before

I can reach out and touch your hips,

Your lips, it, as they said, trips me

Past the dream house built of pale

Moonlight and forever and a day.

Up among the concordance of moon,

sun and our loving, bop style in mouth

Jazz explaining to each other from song

To song  how wild this thing is, wind,

The keys ripping past; candles made of

Fireflies and mission bells, tearing 

Sheets of song into tiny pieces.  Oh yes how

And howl, spurl myself digningly, plutridly

Fornicoulted, intensely exploding in charcoal

Mouth bar-b-que laughing.  There is

No further town we can be found in.

Every stop on your skin unveils the

Brisk night, irresponsible, tales told

By the blind about how the hands

Know the name, the name of all the rains,

Their particular voice, their night thoughts,

On sidewalks, opened at last, no streetlights,

No mouth of song following.  I touch

Your crazy traffic and burn acetylene yellow,

Pure green.  Aircraft land in the middle of summer.

My skin stretches, explodes and contains all

The mysterious rainbows from which we reconstruct

The language of all the endless nights of our youth.

THE BOOK OF SHIT

Frank Brangwyn

This was the first poem in my book CRUISIN' AT THE LIMIT: Selected Poems 1968-1978 published by Duck down Press, Fallon NV. 1982

THE BOOK OF SHIT

(invocation to the muse)

What fire then?

To give myself to children?

Oh woman run free before me

and let your hair come down, a winding sheet

for the fairest of the fair, the daughters

of the wind, your hair.

To be left alone somewhere in 1959

listening to fur piece bands play over

and over again, Night Train, memories

of bottles and stale smoke visions of black

haired girls dancing, legs spread, everybody’s 

hustlin’ brother, get your ass out there

and get it on.  And my guitar kept playing

thru Bill Doggett, spending a portion of your life

looking out the window of a smelly mens room

looking at the traffic going down Niagara Falls

Blvd., taillights like sores across the parking

lot.  And the band played on.

Sometimes I drank.

My first wife, dream bitch, falling

asleep on the couch and letting me rape her

in quiet of sunday afternoon after weeks of

not coming near my body, my brain warping

out on its own jetstream of her working and

not coming  home till two or three in the morning.

She didn’t wake up the whole goddamn time.

Just laid there and I stuck it in and worked.

My heart, coming so close to the dream

and she laid there, later to say, “Don’t

try to fuck me when I’m asleep” and I had

no more words, walked out on the porch

and watched the street lights

and cars.  All the music little purple fires

in the ends of my fingers.  she said

listening to me read something to my best

friend, “Why not call your first book:

THE BOOK OF SHIT.’

It was a joke, we all laughed.

She could not understand

what I was doing and I wrote harder to keep

her away from what was my self, the damage was

already done.  I wanted to keep a small part

for myself, some place where i could be pure.

Finally, waking up to orange juice and glucose

after 21 days of shock treatments for an anxiety

reaction, which means I wound up huddled behind

a door afraid to open it to anyone.  Anyway it worked.

I didn’t care about a thing.

Thorazine and hands moving in my dreams.

All that was left were the words.

All that was left was the part I had kept

for myself, the poems: THE BOOK OF SHIT.

Class of ’61.

A LATE JOURNEY

A LATE JOURNEY

We passed the house of the avenging angel

With its parapets and ribboned trumpeters,

Purple and red-violet the color

Of their eyes.  It was the hour

When dreams are captured, sorted

And released to the children born

To the damned and to those who

Wander.  They are unable to speak,

Dress in cassocks and flowing

Gowns.   They do not take bodies

Often as it is this dreaming

That gives voices to the winds.

We can see this in the eyes

Wild animals turn to us

When we encounter them in the forest,

Unexpected and interrupting their precision

We like to call behavior.

The stars wound round him, this lurid angel

As the singing rose around us.  Lights began

To go out as stars became the evening.