Poetry

I.

There is a flowing stream of music always playing in my mind
It never ends, though it changes with my moods.  
I can hear the music playing, loud as radio
and change it into anything I choose.

The hard part is here in the hands,
making hands play what the mind hears,
not even the mind,
but what the muse may direct,
and focus into sounds 
made by the hands,
by the notes they're pulled toward,

or as Henry Miller maybe said,
till you don't give a fuck
you don't care anymore
you're alive, it's alive,
that's real.
That's enough,
enough.

    it is at that point that you may be useful to the muse
        it is at that point that you may feel her breathing
            inside your own mind burning

at this point, when you have nothing left to say
when Death and Obscurity have freed you
from your artist's desire to make a mark
to make the world take notice
when it all means nothing anymore
and all that is left is

the note 
the chord
the breath
and the wind

II.

At the moment you sound that note,
the chord... at that moment
you are the creator of all 
all notes that shape the chords of spirit 
that transfigure atmosphere,
connecting to the memory of the earth,
past what is known, or within what is known;
to assume that beauty is reality
(the ferocity of a swarm of winged termites
sizzling up out of the ground),
a horrible beauty, frightens and pulls
toward a new way of hearing till you fear the cliff
you fear you'll not come back
in the moment you crack the shell….

Coward, you poor forlorn mummy of a culture
You just want your shell repaired,
but now there's nothing there,
no shell, only sounds left hanging in the air.
There are only new notes now
in this moment immediately heard
through the hands

through the breath
the chords
the notes 
    your sublime touch
        and the wind

 

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