399-420

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.