The Drear-So-Dear Rear View

So to reiterate: the symbol or numen -- the imago of my thrall, in all Her yeasty breasted blue-swelled cresting crashing wild to foam my lees -- captivates the mind with its raw power, holding it thus til it has been fucked and flung and hooved and hoovered, til its thrill is You, the articulated to the ends of the sacred cartography, every island nacred, every shore shellacked with the ambergris of my spermacetti ire. Once baptised by the numen, the only way out is through. The tale here is a sort of psychic bildungsroman, looking in the rear view mirror to divine my forward compass. What is it in that backwards glance of Orpheus, so filled with desire, so doomed to lose the heart’s own shade? Why does St. Columba desire so to look upon the face of buried St. Oran one last time -- news of death, or desire to see with Oran’s eyes the future he was building?

Let us spend a while in that backwards glance, in the back ward of chained repressions, amid all I lost to find this work here

....



THE THRILL OF IT ALL

from "A Breviary of Guitars"

spring 1978

The music of
what followed
had a harder
beat: The
season was
overtaken by
Roxy Music,
those stylin’
rock romantics
trolling at
the ragged edge
of disco,
a cocktail shaken
(not stirred)
from to
the urgent beat
of savior faire:

The time has come
It’s getting late
It’s now or never
Don’t hesitate or stall
When I call
Don’t spoil
The Thrill of It All

That’s from
"The Thrill of
It All, Roxy anthem
off Country Living,
their fourth album:
the import version
shows two
Eurobabes in
panties caught
in the flash
by some bushes
(The domestic
cover was purged
of titillation’s
angels: just
nocturnal bush.
Which still
sufficed, if
you knew
what it troped.)
My buddy Dave
was back on
spring break
raw in his
erotic angst,
eager to fly
again: We
spun that song
like a prayer
to open us:
a driving
rhythm of
doublebass drum
and mantic bass
like hooves
at full gallop:
it’s fusillade
of romantic angst
not so much
marshalled
as hurled against
the night,
desire tempered
to the keenest
edge by rage
and fear that
our precious
small chance
for love will be
forever lost:
Opportunity
is that second’s
gap in the
enemy’s defense
through which
we must loose
our arrows NOW:
The opening
is that small
forgotten air
vent in the Death
Star through which
Luke Skywalker
in the first
"Star Wars"
launched his bomb,
not with the
aid of any
computer
but a
triangulation of
desire and
necessity in Heart:
Dave and I
would hear
that song,
look at each
other, then
head to our
rooms to
change into
the finest
somewhat
clean rags we
could find:
We’d down
a round or
two of Blue Jesuses
then climb
in Dave’s Mustang
(which started
up like the
sportscar in
"Love Is The Drug")
to drive not
to the rock club
filled with luckless
rock zombies
but to the disco
at the Sheraton
where girls were
dancing to
a jaded Top 40
touring band
within the red
sugary whorls
of glitterlight
and Long
Island Iced Teas:
The band
confected
local coke-snoots
of Average White Band
& Bee Gees,
& Donna Summer
wearing white leisure
suits with shirts
opened wide:
Dave & I
downed one
tequila-challenged
marguerita
and asked every
girl in the club
to dance till
closing time.
Always luckless,
we’d climb back
in Dave’s Mustang
hearing that
distant surge and
haul of the river,
the night
streets glistening
with spring rain
promising all
and empty of
sweet Becky:

Everywhere I look
I see your face
I hear your name
It’s all over the place
Hey girl
Tho you’ve gone
Still I recall
The Thrill of It All

We never scored
at that club,
but that never
seemed the point:
The kick was
in hearing "The
Thrill of It All"
and responding
to its thrown
gauntlet,
heading out
heedless of
the hour or
budget (none)
or any other
of the superego's
sober duties,
feeling only
possibility,
our hungers
fuelled like those
Blue Jesuses
with desire’s
holy flame:
We became
Astarte’s temple
jackals with
tuxes rented
from the moon:
And I swore
I would find
Becky again
no matter what
the cost, no matter
where I would
go, no matter how
far I must fall:

I can’t see
I can’t speak
I couldn’t take more than another week
Without you -- oh no
So I will drink my fill
Till the Thrill Is You




Thrill indeed: enter the abyss of love’s enchantment and shatter, chasing the dream, trying to find her again in the next or the next or maybe the next bed. Ah but how the desire is so bent backwards, trying to reclaim what was taken from me in that outward-flinging embrace, it now in the possession of a woman who walked away. No wonder I became such an

***


ASS MAN

Summer 2000

A man is
geared by the
triangulation
of his history
with and desire
for a woman’s
body: Focus
tightens on
a locus of
such keen interest
you’d think the
throne &
altar of our
world was there:
(It is:) There
are smut mags
and Web sites
zoned to the
empires of
our bottomless
need: Boobs:
Teens: Redheads:
Hardcore: Facials:
Oral: Anal: Mature:
HeShes: Lactating:
Bondage: Water
Sports: Gay: Some
guys thrill at
the sight of
a woman’s breasts
above all: Some
come at the
sight of a
gartered legs:
Others
keel the depths
with blonde
or red hair
especially down
below: While
all these parts
can poof my
prong, (hammer
my hoses, wake
the hearsed dolphin,
scream my guitar
boat to every
aerie of naught)
I’d have to say
above all
I’m an Ass Man:
Love — I mean
LOVE — the
sight of a
woman walking
away: Those
sweet full curves
house the motions
of departure
and call: I love
it when one
of those jockettes
at the gym
bends over
to retrieve a
towel or to
tie her shoes
and up and
out goes her
tight sweet
ass: It would
be so easy
to just mosey
over behind
her behind
& corral myself
there: Yeee
Haw: I love to
get back in bed
in the morning
after these
perusals in old
panties & lay
naked next to
my wife with
her back to me:
Feel my cock
nestle against
the sleepy warmth
of her ass
and then thrust
my hips against
her slowly, not
hardening but
savoring each
inch of contact
& the sweet glow
of my loins
there: When I
leaf through
one of those
onehanded mags
admiring &
lusting for
a woman’s
full naked clench
there is one
shot which nails
me clean through:
She’s kneeling
at a bed or
couch facing
way from the
camera &
her butthole
& cunt tucked
in the split
moon of her
ass facing
directly at me
like a face from
down under:
Perhaps just a
hint of
her face or
breasts showing
waiting silently
expectantly for
my approach
& ravage:
Oh man: I
want to just
nestle my face
there & go
booogabooga
booga, lick
& kiss & bathe
& dream in all
that sweet
exude, that
musky dusky
oily roily
fishwater: Or
grab her hips
in my hands
& plung my
cock into
her cunt &
ass up and in
& in and out
& up and
up and up
and awayyyy
we go: I don’t
find any ass
memories down
there where I
fucked a true
love from behind:
At least the
love-memory
isn’t connected
there: Rather
those glosses
are all looking
into her face
at the moment
of arrival my
cock hard as
granite & my
nuts spasming
in a total loss
of control & she
smiling deeply
with her eyes
closed & whispering
come baby come
home to me:
Ocean beaches
& crashing surf
& all of
my wildly
emptying into
her: Yes those
are potent
memories but
the ass dreams
are more so:
Perhaps they’re
inflected
or infected with
nether truths
of evacuation,
departure, loss:
Desire defines
along an edge
of refusal: Little
Kim on the
playground when
I was 9 walking
away after
refusing my
bouquet of
dandelions — ooh
see that sweet
& pert little
butt dancing
away into the
hazy oblivion —
I store that
image in a
vault of sights:
Big and little
crossed O’s:
The Bigger
O focuses that
forever between
longing’s fingertips
& Eurydice’s
disappearing
shade: (Nice
butt, eh?)
But who really
leaves who
I wonder? Isn’t
the chase after
human moons
defined by sheer
fabrics & a line
of panty a call
for self-departure,
a leave of
my own sense?
I swore I would
never marry again
but when I
first saw my
future second
wife at the Sapphire
Supper Club in
October ‘96
she was leaning
over the bar
to order a
drink: She
wore a white
pants suit that
perfectly cupped
her ass as she
leaned over
& that was it:
I do & I
Will & I Must
& I Shall: "The
one thing we
seek with
insatiable
desire is
to forget ourselves,
to be surprised
out of our
propriety, to
lose our
sepiternal memory
and to do
something without
knowing how or why;
in short, to
draw a new
circle," Emerson
writes in his
heavenly
sphere of an
essay "Circles":
Certainly my
future wife and
partner’s bottom
raising
just an inch
as she strained
to hear the
bartender drew
me into a
new circle: It
was an
invitation,
wholly unconscious
and accidental,
forming a new
circle which
cycles me here:
Yet Butt is also
But, the
exception, the
prohibited No
my mother so
tartly scolded
me for: There’s
a naughtiness
which draws me
darkly toward
a woman’s ass
in ways I’ll
never be able
to frontally
confess to ‘em:
I would love
to fuck my wife
up the ass but
she would never
allow such
pilllage of control:
No woman would,
I think, not
willingly, though
the notion that
every one secretly
would love me
up there is
eternally arousing:
Not that I
relish dipping
my dick into
a woman’s
stinky sludge:
Rather it’s
the notion of
trespass &
the lotion of
taboo: Crossing
border heedless
of what others
dare not attempt:
"Nothing great
is ever achieved
without enthusiasm,"
Emerson again,
end of "Circles":
"The way of
life is wonderful;
it is by
abandonment:"
And ooh how
sweet those cheeks
of departure,
cleft for meeee:
Nothing like
a naughty girl
who savors
dirty games:
Like the bad
girl who took
me into the
woods at 6
& used me every
way: There’s
a smell close
to shit in
molestation,
disturbing,
uncontrollable,
wholly addictive:
I can smell
it in a bad
girl’s husky
voice: It’s part
terror, part
invitation: Oh
the Queen of
Love and the
Evil Princess
Whore are split
evenly in my
desires just
like every other
guy: Love and
its desecration
are like 2
fillies ill-
harnessed to the
same flying chair:
Love builds
strong walls &
save houses in
which passion
falls asleep but
the love works
on forever: Desire
lurks the boundaries
of late afternoon
shadows that
play across a
strange woman’s
ass seeking &
fearing & edging
up to edge &
retreating in
fear: It’s fire,
bubblebutted
fire: Across all
Florida wildfires
now burst into
multiacre blossoms
of bad drought:
A state of
danger close
to the high
noon of summer:
Even the storms
which we pray
for bear dangerous
tongues of sudden
fire: Ooh I
can look but not
touch the next
pale curve on
a strong of moon
beads walking
by busily
ignorant of me:
Revel here if
you must: Grab
her here &
yank down her
shorts & panties
& lean her
against a chair
with her ass
& pussy looking
at you like
a face of wonder
in perfect
alignment with
the stars which
have fated me
here & ask,
what now,
dolphin plow:
Can a midlife
crisis truly
burn out of
control &
then out
completely here?
Can I forget
one note of
that passionate
music by
singing so
helplessly
about it?


***

Oh sublimate, sublimate, such wildfires tinder souls, you know, always end in sufficient ruin ... forego the imperious urge Out There, even Upstairs, act your age, find decent work to be about, fuel the hands that tap away here with saucy blue squeezy squishy blissy octane, that words be "wild and whirling," a lover penultimate in Her thighs-wide invitation, transgressing every border and orifice of the underotherworldly brothel between all lines, where She has come to exist, On Paper, symbolically most evanescently and effervescently Real, endlessly devoured by my desire.

***



IT’S MY GEHENNA
(AND I’LL CRY IF I WANT TO)

2004

There are easier ways to go
than this unrequited,
ever-off-the-shore travail
between the islands of
Your washing bliss.
I could just go numb
inside the free-fall
of days; zip up the
itch and say no more
of that tantalizing
blue so full and not
of what you are
always nougating through.
A sturdier keel of
less sensate wood would
surely cut the swath
of wave with drier
purpose and surer
compass, I mean
should it ever rue
to leave the harbor
which it would not.
Moored fast to the
world’s known dock,
that boat would
rock all night on soft
dazed sleep, impregnable
to the breasts of dream.
But you are much too
sweet upon that crashing
shore no boat or song
can reach for me to
even wish to fling
the burn of those high
frozen stars which augured
my voyage long ago we
first met and kissed.
Such ancient lamps
are much too oiled
from our first bliss
to dare physic a
damping down by sleeping
through to first light.
Instead I war on
with my gods
here on my
devout knees,
beseeching the wide
dark tide to show
your face at last,
a least one smootch
of curve and smash.
for these curve
smashing eyes.
And so I vigil here
again and again and
again, lighting candles
in these votive boats
of paper and incessant
ink, writing down
every squid and
sperm-whale tussle
in the depths of all
I dream to know of
you. Futile and fruitless
perhaps to the waking
day, but the nails
are inextricable
and have fused me
to a burning tree that
lamps each matin
with a wild candesdcent
longing for the next
words I can say
of how you stood
and smiled in the
milky new day’s light
with sleep blue in
your eyes and pulled
me once again into that
voluptuous song
that ever deepens
because it never dies.


***

Consumed by an archetype, consuming it whole ... thus the water-nymph who woke me from a sleep drowned me in deeper waters than I ever dared to find her when I thought she waited for me in some actual harborage or bar or bed. My chances for getting laid these days are finite, wardened and walled by the life I have willed and deemed good and give thanks for on my knees every day; ah but the liaisons are infinite in the gauzy diapsons of the word, astride the feral dolphin who makes literal sex seem so symbolic, upside down the topmost sense of things, plunging waves like upturned asses, singing all the darkest names of God to be chanted by the climactic choir of time. Cerne Giant striding thus, cock a straight road from hips to lips, spearing the heart of things dead-on, spouting the milky quintessence across the pendulous pale breasts I imagine you the reader proffer.

Music to whose ears? Thus Orpheus must lead Love out from Hell on the sound of soles alone. The eternal enthrallment of the symbol means there’s no real exhausting it; fucking on paper is still fucking, ainit? I’ll never let that ocean motion go. So my backwards glance in aching fondness for what I lost when I said No -- No to literal sashays, No to the indolence of LaLaLand, No to dalliance, No to dreams of perfection and endless satiety, No to defying my mother’s old admonition that there’s more to life than A Bed, A Babe and A Bottle of Booze -- the thrall of the symbol is spectral and lucent, like a moon, the boneyard bonelight resonance of the grave I buried all of those immature dreams in, all of those scintillant Scyllas of the unrepentent heart --

Yes -- so my backwards glance, desiring to look upon the face of Oran one last time, impatient to see my love Eurydice in the land I lost her to -- my fondness for watching a woman walk from the room, ass waving to me in pure departure -- my backassed upside down Otherworldly thrall which makes all things true on paper which could never be in life --

My backwards glance is reverent of the symbol which led me here into futurity, into the Orphic poems of experience, into Irish Christian church of the 6th century, into later middle age with so much work to do that getting up at 3:30 a.m. just doesn’t cut it, makes my verbals explode in a wave-smash of blue ardor, in a prose to poetic for its own good, throwing in poems to prosaic to be of any good to the art.

Hopeless and futile and divine, that’s what She renders in her wild pale son, riding the wavebacks till every song has been sung.



HARVEST

2002

I.

During that summer
in Pennsylvania in ‘78
—a bridge between first
love and long winter—
I scythed a field
behind my father’s house.

The field was ringed
by oak and beech
and maple, puritans
all of wild nature.
Over us the sun
wrote hyperboles
of desire, lathering
us in its swoon.

I loved the motions
of faux harvest,
lifting high that
long blade, carving
off a shank of sun
before sweeping down
in a muscular arc
through shin-high
tapers of weed.

Each return of
the blade seemed
to reach for the
woman I’d lost,
sweeping into the
void she’d driven
off into: But the
blade returned naked
into the bright air
with a long, lonely swish.

Working down the field
I recalled how she smiled
as we stood over the Spokane
River, the spring runoff
pounding chords into mist.
How all that rose to
a hammering release
and then floated
for miles in a drowse.

All lost. I could have made
of that scythe a tillage,
clearing away love’s ruin
to plant something good,
at least useful; maybe
learn something, too.
I was for that hour good
and simple, poised to begin:

But I wasn’t ready to let go
what I’d had lost. I was
too young and stewed
in the sun’s bullish ire.
I mowed that field down
to summer’s end,
set scythe in the barn,
then boarded a train headed
West to find her again.


II.

On a cold autumn night
hedged by the striate
foliage of pot and speed
and booze, I picked up
a guitar and plugged
into a riverish roar.
I loved the weight
of that Fender Strat,
a heftier blade, equine
and amped, cranked to
the berserkeries of love.

What did I know? I was
far afield in foolish ends,
caught in a big night music
which screamed to the
nadir of her. Each swing
of that guitar at song’s
end hauled a sickle moon
down through loud falls
as hard as I could,
arcing back fever-bright
with the ghost of her smile.

Gone, but not lost.
It took me the worst years
to get back to those weeds.
To welcome emptiness
as a field you could scythe.
To celebrate the motions
which complete every kiss,
harvesting what falls
in that long, lonely,
brilliant swish.