399
ALICE COLTRANE
: Turiya and Ramakrishna
They were turning off the last lights in the bar across the street
When
a rainy squall lashed the façade
And
ripped the awning of a café
halfway off :
The white canvas trailed slowly across the concrete
And wrapped around
The base of the streetlight.
A man wearing a mackintosh over a grey suit stepped gingerly
Over the awning, holding the steel of the lamp
And looking down and holding up his arm for balance.
A whorl of trash blew up against a shuttered shop,
White and blue
And grey and sallow green and grey and white.
All was bound in the movement of the deathgod. All :
The street and the shops and the wittering awning,
The last lights of the bar that was closing down and the people
Coming out of the back door of the bar, crossing in the rain
To their automobiles :
All was bound in the body and the voice of the deathgod.
When I spoke her name I could hear music.
It was as if a quiet song played in the distance, a quiet song
With no singer. I drank some water and returned to the window.
After a short while the rain stopped and the evening
Grew peachcoloured
And the clouds softened and blanched and pigeons
Flew up from the roof of the buildings opposite and made
Bleak and lovely shapes in the thinning twilit air.
I drew the curtains and lay down in a chair and went to sleep.
400
CHARLES MINGUS
: Celia
Beyond the stage,
Liquids of orange and green shimmer
In diaphanous orbs, opaque as blood.
As the house lights dim a tall, black waiter
With a broken nose approaches a table
By
the stage, and whispers to a patron—
Grand Mme LaFarge, who is wrapped up
In a skein of silk the colour of a boreal
Forest, and whose jowls swell wetly
At
her collar—whispers that she might
Rise and join the proprietor upstairs
in
The executive lounge. He then retreats.
The great mother moves her forearm
As at a fly. Its slack follows, a grey
skirt.
Figures and black and white move out
From the wings and populate the stage.
They assume a scattered formation.
For a moment they seem ready to dance.
But they lie down on the boards and
fold
Their arms and rest their heads on
their
Folded arms and fall into a shallow
sleep.
The room drowses under waves of colour
And soon there is no movement anywhere.
The black waiter is a pied heap by the
door.
Smoke comes from the doorframes
And from the windowframes and the glass
Piled on the tables dissolves in smoke.
Some time later, in the night, men in
yellow
Overalls and masks of red and yellow
come
To carry the bodies out one by one.
401
Filtered through Kathleen Telesco
It's always summer with you,
in the face, this here,
the light that rises and divides forth.
No love nor chase, avoid the night,
And sally up poor grace.
In line upon the furrowed rays of
brows,
Arrayed in black and whiii-ite,
Ai along my love in heathen kin,
All further loves without!
I'll a heelin' an a hivin go all with
the night devouuut.
It's always summer with you.
I could be on a beach.
You make me feel this way.
Thats because of you,
That it's that way.
402
At the corner of
main street there was
A bus shelter,
and a Pepsi truck
In the shade of a
large symettrical building
Housing an
insurance company.
During a moment of
quiet a man
In a tan suit
unfolded his umbrella
In the brilliant
sunshine and shook off
Drops of golden
water that followed
Quick paths out of
the light,
Giving the effect
of a catherine wheel.
It was out of
joint. I was sure there had been
A simple error;
That the movement
of the cargo of the truck,
And
the qualities—real
And
imaginary—of the building
And of the
insurance company,
And the pattern of
the coloured spray of rain,
Were all products
of a simple error.
Feeling like that,
I ordered breakfast, opening
An old newspaper
to the second page.
403
In a car of the
late train I listened
As two old men sat
and leant close
Their large sparse
hair, discussing
A third man,
apparently a colleague.
They used his last
name in a way
That seemed
habitual : there was
A little fear and
a little disdain in it.
The glassy eyes of
one rolled sleepily.
As I listened
single words detached
And wandered in
their own shapes.
“Performance”,
for man, per force,
Answered for men.
Not to speak of
“Objective”,
through which gestures
Went, perspective
through opaquity.
“Portfolio”
sang fol de rol pour
nous.
I was sure that
the older of the two
Used a word of
shame, sure that when
He uttered it,
squalling lamplight loak
Out, all over his
paunchy shirtfront,
Like so much
glistening fountain ink.
The third man
remained immaterial,
A figure of local
significance. As I went
Up the aisle,
their four shallow eyes
Runnelled me in a
baritone, and I exited.
404
A blessure on its
arm dragged straw
Out of the
strawman, and when the rain
Drove, the whole
figure half fell or
Sank its right leg
in up to the shin.
They had bound his
foins with red
Twine, stabilised
him with a scaffold
Of mildewed wood,
and propped
Him in the hedge,
hoping he'd hold.
A figure for the
parish dead. He had
All but
disintegrated by the time
December rang and
blew its grey blood
Down the
telegraph's uneven line.
Matter from the
blasted arm spooled
Into the water,
framing an image
Of red rosehips.
The wind dropped,
Momentarily, as to
allay its damage.
405
I sat in my living
room until four,
Waiting for the
sun to slide around
And for the
daylight to soften,
And then I got
dressed and poured
Myself a glass of
water and went down
To the downstairs
door to listen.
I drank the water
sitting on the floor,
Against the inside
sill. I wound
Myself up to
stand, opened up, and then
I was down the
street. Planes were
Following their
paths above the town,
And I mine. I felt
myself being drawn
Toward the high
street. It was sure,
A force in my body
that had grown
Of itself, and no
imperative. I felt thin.
When I got to the
library she was there,
In a blue calico
dress, on her phone.
I sputtered and
she took me in.
I believe an hour
passed and we were
Out on the bridge
listening to the drone
Of traffic and
watching the pattern
The water made and
the patterns where
The gulls alighted
on the water and down
Into the deep
water, the slow moving
Of fish and
blowing-out of maidenhair.
The river was
rising in the wind. A crown
Of water formed in
the wind. A sudden
Thought occurred
and I looked to the shore.
I had left the
glass behind the door. A man
Passed us where we
stood at the railing,
And I found our
bodies were together.
I could taste her
breath. The water
Flurried softly
with light, and it was over.
406
I will sing to you
A brief song
Of the elderberry
And the whorling
Brook.
I was old,
Where the water
And the branches
Ran, where streams
Bifurcated,
Where light rayed
And split. Now,
The water is
still,
And the branches
Are still, both
fallen
Into a motion more
Subtle and more
sure,
And I find of a
moment
I have grown
young.
407
“I never asked
To be born,”
Said the Andromeda
Galaxy to
The harvest moon.
“Death comes slow,”
Chirruped the fox
To the jackalope.
408
There is a grey at
the window
Out of milk white
cloud,
And here, in our
room, halogen
As soft as sleep.
Thirteen souls
punctuate the rows
Of desks, another
three are
Propped
laconically against the lockers
Outside. They are
all invested
In the same slight
world,
To which they
slowly, silently apply.
We read that which
we are
Assigned, even if
our reading runs
The span of life.
Even as our
Project fails in
the end, we will have
Known, in some
part, our role.
Our room,
children, is a den of light,
And your minds no
skinny fires.
You bear something
or other out,
And I will not be
the one
To tell you just
what it is.
Carry out of here
some ember,
For it is dim in
the corridor of years.
Keep heart, and be
as good as you can.
Hold to truth on
milk white days.
409
My dear Sebastian :
The neighbourhood will not be there forever.
The clothes you wear will not be there forever.
Your father and your mother, and your brother
(Who you have not seen now for several weeks),
Will not live out more than their narrow share.
The darkened passing of the boats beneath
Our town bridge, and the noise of the traffic,
Will not be there through all of further time.
Our life, and the words we have spoken
To one another; flippant or strained or louche
Or cold; dancing or stupid or sarcastic or blunt;
Old or new or just routine : none of these words,
None of the concepts of which our acquaintance
Now consists, will live out any more than the
Merest structure of one slight measure of this life.
In that light, the way you spoke to me today,
Though it was ridiculous and gave offense,
Was eloquent only in the way that a branch,
Weighted with blooms, swaying on moist wind,
May speak of all the tide that blows it down.
In the end I saw you in your weakness as a child,
And waited to tell you just how little anything
You could wish to say would help you on.
410
Spring began to
blow
Fast at the
windows.
He was out in it,
Standing in the
weeds
Tracing the
flowerbeds
With a yellow
flashlight.
Out of the
corridor
Of blousy rain
A grey pulsing
glow ran
And he turned
To look upon the
ditch
And the japing
stream
Where tadpoles
slung
In a coiled chain.
As the dark came
truly
Down, a heron
broke
Out of the reeds,
leaving,
It seemed, parts
of its
Awkward body as
livid
Signs in the cool
air.
Again he turned,
and a
Sign rang the dull
bone
Of his face, and
hot blood
Flowered in his
cheek.
411
They rang solemnly
the bell for matins
And the children
filed in,
Bright as fire and
chained in their robes.
A chorale plashed
out of the head,
And the body
resounded with its excess.
The oldest of the
congregation found
Their flaccid
dreams disturbed, turned
In the direction
of the sound weary eyes.
The chain of
bright bodies in white
Circled again and
settled in a dark nest.
Now a voice
galloped down from height,
Disembodied, and
young ones towed
Their tousled
heads in low arcs, as if
To avoid the
sudden lighting of a blow.
Blent shades of
crimson and purple
Disjoined and blew
out along the velour
Inside the gold
cage of the Lady Chapel.
The voice
continued, intoning one after
One after another
blue commandwords.
Blue commandwords
: water-flute of bone ;
Shackle of downy
green ; O, wardrobe of
Buck-Nessus ;
April of a young world.
412
I heard the report, and admit
A damp fall in the leaves
Behind the house, admit pawing
Over the earth for my near-
Concluded cigarette. Nothing
That afternoon could compell
My voice. I drank milkwater
From the tap and ran it over
My forehead and my eyes,
Threw my clothes in the pile,
Sat half-naked in the light
Of rolling news, and smoked.
They dredged her body up
Like a wrecked schooner : white
Crabs goring whitish bloat.
A lamp was on somewhere
In someone else's home.
Watching, I had a feeling that
The water would advance
And cover all in radiance.
413
As the daylight
withdrew there was
A movement in the
sky and the trees
Loaded with
blossom shook and shook.
In the arc of
heaven great engines
Roared and drew
across the deep azure
Sparse signs that
dropped in shade.
Here at the corner
of the first street,
In the first
quarter of the old world,
A guitar sounded
and the trees swung.
I was born in such
squall of lights,
Such blowing of
waters and darkling
Ember
of flowers—of my mother's
body.
A dislimned form
of her was left,
Dewy of its own
exhaustion. The body
Ran down into past
existence its thread.
As the pane shook,
the cherry shook.
The mantle of the
planet shook.
My voice shook,
and my quiet heart.
We have such
barren names for all :
And in all, the
unpronounced name
Of which our first
darkening consist.
414
Will you speak to
him tonight?
I have lost my
voice
And cannot follow
you and ask.
My body falters,
and here I
Know that soon the
wheel
Will turn and I
will die.
The earth is
melody and bright,
Blowing out its
colours
To us where we sit
in quiet.
Cover me in every
cloth at hand,
But go, child,
alone,
And speak my name
to him.
415
The wild air
strome with moisture,
And the bells of
the ships rang,
Gromko, gromko,
gromko ; swollen
On the dammering
evening air.
Bowing shapes came
forward over
The houses which
of a moment had
Assumed the forms
of cedars.
Tikho, tikho ; the
sodden wind wove.
The scene consumed
itself. Overhead
Wheeled pidgeons
in large, blank arcs,
At which center a
peregrine moved.
Dolzhen. Felted
stars moseyed on, on.
Further, there was
a dwindling down
Of bedside lamps,
and the stark voices
Of
the bells blew again: continuoons.
The
wind rose: blutstrom -om
-om.
416
I was not aware;
And at the center
of my lackwit
A bulbous
awl-handle
Jacked in the
groove, sundering
From me my
gee-whizz.
I was not aware,
though it stood
To reason that
light
Tumble down
through the trees,
And that the woman
I wait for move
somehow away,
And the whole damn
show
Fold in its
foppery and bally-ho.
It stood therefore
To reason that the
day grow blue
And the speech of
those
Around me swing
slowly out of it,
Out of all its own
sense;
Turn to rawest
bloody gibberish.
So I turn down
neatly
My soul ; so I
prepare soundly for
A fine, long
sleep.
I turn : I turn
and close the door.
417
It was a mistake
to come here
Which I will not
disown ;
Though I will say
before I go
That it need not
have drawn
To this
eventuality, need not
Have grown to this
extreme.
We might have gone
along
In some measure of
reason
In the order of a
modest trust
And filled out
some purpose.
However every word
I speak
Is ineffectual ; I
see no fruit
From
sentimentality here,
Before your
honours. I will go,
Knowing at least
that I spoke
Some formula of my
regret,
Knowing at least I
stood here
As a particular
man in dress
Of one
circumstance at one
Particular time,
and spoke.
Goodnight,
gentlemen. At
Our next meeting
you may not
Recognise me. At
that time,
I shall speak
these words again.
418
I am going up
country
And I will not
come home :
Enfin,
je me suis dégagée
De
tous vos bêtises, Michael.
You will find a brand new
bulb
In the lamp at your desk.
The old one, that blinked
Through all the nights
when
You were working, is dull
And grey and in the drawer
With all the other duds
You kept without further
need.
There is, I suppose,
No expedient to draw you
out
Of such malign habits ;
If there were, I think I
should
At some point have found
it.
Do not punish you and roar
And crash around in drink.
In such a state you will
only
Cry and make a foolish
mess
Of your clothes, and I
will
Be no nursemaid to you
now.
Consider this our last
contact.
419
Mickey
Mouse sleeps long in his garret,
Loft
of the oldest house in the quarter.
There
is a glass of water by his bed,
And
on the chair by the window an old
Pair
of scarlet shorts. Traffic noise blows
Over
him from the window. He dreams.
He
is walking through an ancient wood.
The
trees look down on him, chuckling.
They
purse their gnarled lips to whistle
Hauntingly.
Birds move about him,
Winking
and tumbling like comets.
From
somewhere in the undergrowth,
A
wurlitzer climbs its tired scale.
He
sits beneath a waterfall. The curtain
Of
the fall and the leaves of the trees
Draw
together in a column. Out of them,
A
feminine shape seems to form. Minnie!
In his sleep he mutters and smacks.
His
piping voice bounds from the rocks
As
he calls to her: “Minnie, oh Minnie!
“The
boat has run aground again and I
“Need
you back oh back. Without you
“I
am fading. You are my Helen. You,
You
are my Aphrodite. Hurry down!”
Later
that day he is waiting at a café
In
Faubourg Saint-Germain. He orders
A
dry white, and finds himself looking
Blearily
up into the trees along the road.
420
I was certain of
the glass of beer in my hand,
But the blue
curtains billowed out and a gust of air
Struck me. At that
juncture I turned toward
The street, where
a carnival was passing in veils
Of smoke. I still
felt the glass of beer in my hand,
But I felt a
thrumming pulse, and the noise of the
Bar and the road
and the floats, and the words
Of those at my
shoulders all subsumed into it.
Someone,
somewhere, was playing a double bass.
The slow
plum-plum-plum was warm and
clear,
And
after that I heard no more from anywhere else.
The
bass proceeded, and over it in a space of air
Three
broken chords on the piano had cause to fall,
Pluie, pluie,
parapluie. Then there was
another
Billow
of the broad blue curtains at my back, and
A
trumpet line splayed out, brassy and superfoliate.
« Oh
là là là là telle belle telle belle maille étoilée
»
L'ange
a poliment chanté. I closed my eyes and the
Line
moved through me. The angel was motionless,
Fading
slowly in and out of field. It all surged on,
Modulating
darkly one chromatic step. Then the
Instruments
resigned their positions in space,
And
the melody broke off into its own channel,
And
there was a silence, in which what was being
Communicated
rose out of its shell, beyond music :
An
emaciated man was cradling his child beneath a
Grey
tin roof, and the rain was pouring through.
Filaments
of yellow and orange and white blent
In
the eyes of the child, and something fluid folded
From
its body and hung on the man's face in wisps.
It
was all passing—the wisps of smoke hung
From
the ragged moustache on his lip, and a curtain
Of
grey water hung from the ragged corrugation at
The
roof's edge. It was all passing out in smoke,
Silently,
silently, silently. The man drew the cigarette
To
his lips and took from it again, and the child
Sounded
out an empty monotone ; once, twice.
Then
again I was in the bar—and the carnival, passing
Through
its manifold images of the divine, and the soft
Welling
of noise about me, were measured in the long
Voice
the brush drew from the snare : ça,
ça,
ça.
