I

            

            I am this. I am that, I am neither this nor that. 

            The dewdrop and the petal, the mist of the waterfall am I. 

            Rooted in mother mud, raised up by father sky am I. 

            I, the demiurge, mover of mountains and cleaver of canyons, 

            I the custodian of archetypes, the disruptor, I the bezel, 

            I the Being, the undifferentiated Breath, I the articulate, 

            the Letters and the Names, This and That am I. 

            I the surface, I the deep, I the manifest, I the hidden, 

            I the cyclone, I the tempest, the storm's eye am I. 

            I am flesh and I am bone. The heart, the ventricles, the arteries, 

            limbs, eyes and tongue move, see and speak through I. 

            The East the West the North the South, the point, the pole, 

            the plane, the fount of Forms, the Self-Disclosed Supreme Logos, 

            the sum of entropy and order am I. I the Tablet, I the Calamus. 

            The red Sulphur, the soil, the clay - they mix and separate in praise of I. 

            I eat and I am eaten. I the sower, I the seed, I the giver, I the taker, 

            the vital and departing breath flow through I, the vehicle. 

            I the departing, I the returning, I the First and I the Last. 

                        If I am not these, then what is I?

 

 

         

         Two Sonnets

 

                                                I

 

            I marooned into the ministry

            of the propagation of virtues and the prevention of vice,

            uncocked myself, cursed the monarchy,

            tongued a man and eyed the women twice.

            Every man, tongued, doting dice

            eye-groping like a corporateer

            unwound their thighs hoping to entice

            high-colonel cunting the bonely vizir.

            I was there on business, not to sog or veer

            I bent my knees and to the floor I fell

            still. Jiving on the Holy O’s and the racketeer

            I flicked my bic, bogged a fag, took my drag then loud as hell

            I raved the mighty smut of divinations

            to whit and woe away the nation’s inclinations.

 

                                               II

 

            Black holes spinning. Imagine two monsters-

            the veteran gravitational wave hunter,

            the other roughly 30- rippling the fabric holes.

            Those numbers that rock you backwards caused a merger

            like two soap bubbles in a bath they coalesce

            turning around each other several tens of times--

            it’s mind boggling at half the speed. The National Press

            numbers look bald on paper. The Heart. All atoms

            bump seven milliseconds and they are beautiful.

            Summer downtime India Japan to Italy

            redrawn to historic scale far from Earth. It

            chinks the glorious equations as ever over any

            obvious candidate regarded as the father over all.

            These occasions dropped years back into orbit.

 

 

​

 

                  Latin Soulfege

                        

                        re   ri   fa   mi   si   so   na

                        di   fa   ni   ta    fa   ri    di

                        fi   na   si   mi  na  do   re

                        na  si   so  di    ri   fa    na

                        fi   na   di  re   na  na   si

                        si   ni   do re   ta   do   mi

                        ri   sa   ri  fa   fa    di    do

                        ti   na  na na  fa    re    ri

                        na       fa        fa    re

                        fi         mi      si     ti

                        do       di      re     fa     na      na     na

 

 

​

 

         Live at Happy Birthday Heather’s:

         Ode to Sweet-Lip Bootlace Billy

 

                        Satch!

            The ratatat tell me what I need to know

            tell me 

                        what I need to know--

            just what I need

                                  tell me!

            slapdash silly like Bootlace Billy.

                       Oh but how she tell it so:

            Sweet-Lip Billy blankly staring

            so close she felt the warmth of the tenor horn

                       breathing closely to her ear

            oh yes how she do

            Bootlace Billy on the roux.

            Billy brushes back her necklong oak-brown hair

                       so lonesome I could cry!

                       the way she do

            tipping back her wineglass gently to her lips

                       blood-red by design.

            I was the glass caressed helpless

            in that moment hip

            to the touch of Sweet-Lip Bootlace Billy.

 

Just treat me right mama

    and I’ll be here night and day

Just treat me right mama

    and I’ll be here night and day

But if you can’t do it mama

   you’re gonna find I’m gone to stay

 

            and Tanqueray Chloé sippin’ lightly

            on her gin martini delicately--

            glass in her left hand, cigarette in her right,

            pack of lucky strikes in a bad blame hour.

            It seemed a thrill, every now and then,

            to see miss Tanqueray hold her glass

            balanced on her knee just right

            dipping her lime compulsively in and out

            of her happy happy rin tin gin martini drink.

            Still fixated on Danny “the tom-tom” Devito

            swishing his brush flirtatiously on his snare,

                        she struck one more.

 

 Can’t even sing my blues away

    but I keep tryin’ everyday

Can’t even sing my blues away

    but I keep tryin’ everyday

My throat has gone dry baby

    Can’t think of one damn tune to play

 

            Satchblow sing me to the bone

                 some horn of brother Gabe ragline

                 hop. I taste the reed I swim the sea melodic

                 that anarchy of tempered tones, watch

                 it cascade and fill the deprivation

                 in my being it is effortless.

            Satchblow swing the pocket carnival gyrations

                 they soliloquize loose gems along

                 the beady lace of past midnight

                 a requiem for Tanqueray.

            Satchblow play the man between two mirrors

                 hack no-peace-I’ll-find, poor Georgia

                 dream deadpan the way you tell it so, 

            Satchblow.

 

If I had a nickel

    I’d put it towards that diamond ring

If I had a nickel

    I’d put it towards that diamond ring

I ain’t got nothin’ mama

    not one good goddamn thing

 

            But then came in the man who calls himself Irish--

                 lank and tall and shrill like a 

                 fatally wounded banshee trapped

                 in a broke victrola box oh God

                 he just saw me oh hey, hey man what’s good?

                 tells me I can’t believe you know Earl Hines!

                 Cool man. So I turned my head to fix

                 once more upon my Sweet-Lip Bootlace Billy.

 

Sometimes it feels so right mama

    I just don’t know what to do

Sometimes it feels so right mama

    I just don’t know what to do

But now it just don’t feel right mama

    Can’t even get a hold of you

 

            O Bootlace Billy but for the way you do

                 the eons would flutter reckless from the aural mist

                 unhinged aloud while hepcats dwarfed around you.

            O Bootlace Billy but for the way you do

                 those pinpoint luck-lorn lashes would arrow through

                 uncharted ruminations to penetrate the bleak majestic.

            O Bootlace Billy but for the way you do

                 the voyeurs vapid in lament would undo their seams

                 in the dark boudoirs of their flesh-clod minds

                 lost to the carnal slipstream that is their being.

            O Bootlace Billy but for the way you do

                 the womenfolk would cast their fading silhouettes

                 upon the flawlessness of your taunting countenance,

                 that amourous festoon the envy of sextillion hosts angelic.

            O Bootlace Billy but for the way you do

                 the sound notations would be devoured

                 by the celestial gyroscope of the bandstand

                 wherefrom the pendulumic melodies pretend

                 they do not notice you, pretend they’re not all yours

                 but most profoundly are, they seek your decadence.

            O Bootlace Billy but for the way you see me through

                          I see you too.

 

Every time you look at me

    to the heavens I will cry

Every time you look at me

    to the heavens I will cry

But every time I look at you mama

    you just turn your head and sigh

 

Seems all I do is drink and ramble

    wonderin’ where you stayed last night

Seems all I do is drink and ramble

    wonderin’ where you stayed last night

So I will sit here drinkin’

    ‘til I see that mornin’ light

 

            But then it came, last call, the third encore,

            the last smoke rings of Chloé Tanqueray,

            the swift decline of tom-tom Danny,

            Satchblow’s final frenzy to the masses,

            the return from trance to temporal,

            the doting sound of the siren rain.

            I wonder if I’ll see the like of you

            again sweet Bootlace Billy. But whether

            through the sagging boughs of Brynmill Park,

            at the Kardomah on a brisk Sunday,

            or by the station waiting for the four,

            you’ll find me singin’ slap-dash silly

                        my very own Blues for Billy.