come over here for a second, please.

The Mountain Man

I

he smelling sweetly
of sage rolling
and blowing
twisted working leaf
on branching
an utter wealth
light in fractals
dispersed, condensing.

in afternoon, a symphony
lush greening branching
listless ways

a song so softly sewn
but a wisp on palate-cheek

ask me again –
a call in the forest,
safety.

in naked dangling
bouncing from bough
to branch
and spent –
float and flutter down
a leaf kissed to loamy earth unmoving.

beauty, in it’s ways
stabbing eye sockets
boulder lawn trim
clipper ship
or hairy –
labirinthae, son of mortals, too keen,
a wisp of smoke
caught on the breeze




II

a poet
a fighter
both will show a noble toe
draw across the pond
ripples rising,
both are far too slow

the mountain man,
crying river
rumble boulder jungle
is better spent
than keeper clocks
keeping
brewing up a greeting
of sky and marrow
slender shaft of
moon delights the eye

rain will fall
upon his face,
a forest
matted tangle
moss and underbrush

beetle sideways on the limb
beetle, sandwich days goodbye
beetle lovely branch scratch
and live earth
caked on his toes

a dance for cloudscapes,
survival
lit a smudge of sage
crumbling dispositions
cast away

III

who will choose
cucumber-melon
body mist over
this sweet loamy creaking
bone sweat
earth rumble
tumbling on the lay?

tobacco drawings on his
flesh
dried up tension
shaken away

even shit,
his processes are
better
that that bottle.
an offer
I will have to refuse.

•§•fini.•§•

Short list of things I like doing:

spray-painting clocks
wearing plaid sleep-pants all day long
drinking ginger ale
gluing buttons to spray-painted clocks

discussing livery coulours
listening to Primus and enjoying the burning sensation of Pace 'hot' picante sauce at the same time

hitting buttons on my calculator randomly then hitting the clear key and laughing
pretending to be a physics major (see above...)
arranging push-pins on the board behind my desk and being to opposed to disrupting their
color patterns to actually use them

wearing ankle bracelets

inventing words like lippant or skrayler
discussing the finer elements of The Siket Disc

taxonomy worksheets
dissuading people from stacking things
breathing night air in great gulps

cutting out paper dolls of famous cosmic-doom metal bassists

making short lists of things I like doing.

GOODNIGHT AND A JOLLY FHATM'WA TO YOU

this, the delicious nature of jungle, judgement

the freshest of hand-crafted eyechedelica.

•§•

Battle-song of the Poet

We are warriors few, and proud
but no swords do we carry
instead in hand a pencil
sharpened at the point

We march under streetlights
and in the back alleys
conducting orchestras in every breath

We march through the bars, the cafes, the libraries –
everywhere, yet unseen by any who care to look

We are warriors few, and proud
on our tonques the scent of dawn
caressed on palate pink
and spit on concrete

Fear our fury!
The poet is the bloodied saint –
martyr and killer of martyrs
in one thought
a wing on every facet and
every grain – blades of grass
and
flecks of dust
lightning bolts
smoky air
wreathed ‘round halos that we wear.

One step closer and I’ll shoot
a bullet to the brain is
enough to act as proof
and step in front of one of us
you’ll likely taste some graphite dust –
or perhaps a little ink in flows so slow

We are warriors few, and proud
raised on muddy water,
wisps of clouds –
souls charged up to release a blast
a volcano, lightning
and
the chill of paper on the skin.

•§•

Right-o. I'm going to go ahead and say it: I am a shā 'ir. "One Who Knows" - the title our arabic friends give to the poets of their land. Long seen as being almost one with the supernatural, the poet was one to hold in awe and in fear. Almost considered magicians in pre-Islamic arabia, poets were thought to be able to cast their words upon others to good or bad effect.

Oh, yeah - we're pretty good at that.

So, I come to you this year as one of the shā 'ir - and the closest to you, too. (Consider yourself lucky.)

(*light, light, light AND
ALREADY spoken and turning
rejoice in rain and night air!
rejoice!)

Ode to Joy (welcome home, welcome home, welcome love so sweetly...)

as inaugural as virtually possible:

I am ever so happy to return to my home away from homes - Madison, The Ape Village, has claimed me again.

The first day back was reverberant, really. It blew my expectations for welcome away, in fact - a wonderful local musician connection with Tani Diakite and a wave of warm conversation and smooth hooka smoke on a crisp late August evening.

Delightful.

But the good comes with the bitter, I suppose - and I leave my first love in these opening moments. I guess one Mr. Steve Georgiou would say, "The first cut is the deepest..." I am moving on with a half-smiling, half-forlorn look on my face and not a hard feeling harboured in my heart. I just hope that feeling is held dear by both parties - and I think it probably is.

ANYWAY, enough of the philosophising. LET'S GET SOME smoke and clay a cookin' on the poetry burner! Strap on your spurs and let's see this through!

Here's one I like with the title, Anklung.

sway in the lean
teeming

a soap cuttle catfish
sunning in the brown below the water-line

I breathe in the sediment
the organic soupy drifting
and grow anew

sway to the creak and chiming of
anklung

tic-tack
throng k-tong

and flutter of flute song

a breeze that carries music such
bound in waves
upon the shoreline

bouncing along -
two feet
one foot

floating.

sip in the sunlight
I caught in my coffee cup
haul the lobster trap up the starboard side
and gasp for air

I breathe in the sediment
but freshly minced and aromatic
sage brush
and seaweed

one foot
two feet-
break into a run and
lolling,
arms criss-cross
lumber-ing
lumber-ing
ringing footsteps on the pavement

lean back for a while
and take root
absorb one's nitrogen fixation
and look at new sprouts forming,
budding out the fingertip

tell me a story of old oak wood and smoke
a room for platters of mulled wine and cheese
blink in rhythm
to banjo - or lute
carry me back to anklung

and breezy retreat-

so still, so still, so still....

...and dreaming.


•§•

night, y'all