Seance

FROM A SWISS LAKE

Eugenio Montale
transl. Jonathan Galassi

My vixen, I myself was the “poete
Assassine”: there where the hazel grove,
Razored by bonfire, makes a cave;
In that den
A sequined halo
Lit your face, then slowly fell
Until it touched a cloud, dissolved: and anxiously
I called for the end above that deep
Sign of your open, bitter life,
Abominably delicate, yet strong.

Shining in darkness, is it you?
Plumbing that throbbing furrow, on
An incandescent path, hot in pursuit of your
Zombie predator pawprint (nearly
Invisible star-shaped trace),
A stranger, I plunge anew; and a black duck
Now rising from the bottom of the lake
Invites me to the new fire that will singe her.

***


“The role of the animal spirit in initiation rites and in myths and legends of the hero’s travels in the beyond parallels that of the dead man’s soul in (shamanic) initiatory ‘possession.’ But it is clear that it is the shaman himself who becomes the dead man or the animal spirit, or the god, etc.) in order to demonstrate his real ability to ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld. In this light, a common explanation for all these groups of facts seems possible: in a sense, they represent the periodical repitition (that is, begun over again at each new seance) of the shaman’s death and resurrection. The ecstasy is only the concrete experience of the ritual death; in other words, of transcending the profane human condition. And, as we shall see, the shaman is able to attain this ‘death’ by all kinds of means, from narcotics and the drum to ‘possession’ by spirits.”

-- Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy,, 95



SEANCE

Jan. 27, 2006

All of this exalts from nowhere,
exactly where profanes
‘n’ ordinaries are the thickest,
the tangled brake of days
in love’s hard paradise.
I’m headachey this 4 a.m.,
weary from too much
onslaughtage at work,
a new Mac roughing
the grade with glitches
and tweaks, too many
immediates cawing on
the wires I must string
(new changes to trumpet,
new products to hawk),
not enough (never enough)
sleep, & the sense of
a falling world high in
the day, like waves
about to collapse everywhere,
the unlovely American
empire stamping its greedy
bling jackboots, a loudness
leeching the precipice
I here tend and abysm
with diving bells of song.
My seance today is
tempered by that
tractor tailor which
crashed a car behind
a school bus
yesterday near Gainesville,
killing seven kids; their
ghosts weave coldly now
through the garden outside,
demanding more than
mere singing, though its
all these seances provide.
Besides, what’s ecstasy if not
to bathe those spectral
profanes and their pungi
truths with the wildest
surf of blue, if only for the narrow
brief beach of a walking song?
Last night as I fought through
traffic trying to get home
I thought back on those first
wilding seasons of tidal-waving
love, finding in the barrows of
bad nights the woman of my dreams,
falling in love with her on the
wings of a fire which could only
quench in the sea my every
inland cornice and wall,
erasing every hard angle
and texture of jailed self
as I drowned in starry bliss.
I can’t do those halcyon
hours much justice here
but I thought last night
how I sure woke in some
fundamental way when
I died in spasming shudder
cock-deep in her Yes Oh Yes,
coming to in some blue augment
which became my history
since, my religion of one,
lover and translucent Beloved
merged yet apart, painfully
real in the ordinariest of ways,
each departure a welcome
to plant myself in the footers
of a sigh and swim the depths
inside what I once saw (or
believed I saw) of love in her eyes.
Such reveries roostered last
night in the eternal aggrieve
of commuting, too many red
lights, two dump trucks assholing
around as they phalanxed
both lanes, no more light
to the day, just a single star
in the darkness ahead where
I hoped soon to be home, my
weariness akin to the blind
salmon fighting to the far
end of wild seas, to a chapel
of mortar and bone and
wondrous hidden breasts,
the pelt of four cats, houseplants
everywhere & a garden full
of stilled bushes and fresh
ghosts, bordering the house
where love enacts its daily
profane rounds. These seances
here where I summon the
fish and ride fort on his
exhilarant, scintillant,
magisterial wave to shores
never seen, much less
dreamed -- these
seances are not so much to
take leave of this writing
chair at now 4:30 a.m.
as to dive deeper in it,
down through all the
leagues of inchoate
brine which lubes my
life’s plunge all the way
into my wife’s. That old
dream of love becomes real
in every droll and dear
sense here; and the mojo
I summon from that back
of that fish is not clout,
not permission to cock
love as I please, but rather
a species of praise--praise
for the grace of small
intimate things, for the
clutter and sameness and
comforts of home, my wife
asleep upstairs resting up
for another day sewing
pillows for hire, the cats
curled in the various nooks
of sleep, the world outside
fully at dark ebb yet soon
enough to rise with its
vanguard of brute sun
for better and ill, the whole
package like the skin
of a drum my hand keeps
pounding on in the rhythm
of lines spat and spumed
on pale pages. All of this ink
is the bounty of gods
you’ll never find in the
quarries of the next working
day, just like love.
I die daily here to
rudder what’s really there
in my days as they are --
rudder and rock, as to roll
and then split and spill
all the goods here, in
germanes no scholar can
coerce or explain. Suffice
now to say I’m singing
my way under the tow
of her undies left under
the foot of the bed
my mother once warned
as far short of God’s all.
We’re both right, I’ve found:
this is all and naught
of the ache at the font
of the sea-warding river,
first things first said
before I notch myself back
to the quiver and launch
into the the day, to
hit or miss that curved
pale ass leaving the
far ends of lost rooms.
I’m following that bliss,
and she vaults my seances
where the wave always booms.




FREEZE FRAME

from “A Breviary of Guitars,
2000

What was so arid
in a hammerlock
of high pressure
and a triumphant
angel sun now
just foams &
spouts in storm
after storm:
Every day now
I drive in to
work & see
bump marble
rumps mooning
the heavens:
By lunch they’re
massed ever
empurpled with
fevers hurling
ejaculate snaps
& flooding the
streets: Like new
lovers who cannot
exhaust their
bottomless cistern
of desire hurling
their bodies
at each other
frantic to find
what screams for
release: Storms
again midafternoon
as the day’s
wearies settle
amid problem
accounts & new
AS400 system
woes & programming
patches & the
itch & flick of
a desire which
has no body
it can vanquish
in: But man
it rains hard
a ballsoaking
cuntslobbering
titheave
ballstothewalls
of a storm
in which the
green world
shouts glittery
arias of joy:
The last time
such storm
rose in me
with Donna
was a wan
fair Sunday in
November ‘85
when we drove
to New Smyrna
Beach with her
son Nicky packing
lunch & a bottle
of sherry: Parked
along a deserted
stretch & set
a blanket on
the sand & lounged
there a couple
of hours enjoying
80 degree temps
& the sun
mellow and
sweet & the
surf softly
slapping and
slushing, love
not yet ebbed
& loss early
in its flow: Donna
just beautiful
in a black one
piece bathing
suit that carved
her curves with
authority &
grace & surrender
& her skin a
shock of white
as when she
first peeled
down her panties
for me then
turned her
ass toward my
bright hungry ache:
We sipped our
sherry watching
Nicky play
with a truck
in the sand &
Mr. Mister’s
“Run to Her”
on my boombox
half lost to
the sound of that
swoony merciless
surf: Blue pale
sky, blue green
waters stretching
for miles &
Donna’s eyes
sad and distant,
looking past me:
She got up and
walked down to
to the water’s
edge for a while
soaking up
all that feral
eternity that
makes babies
love & graves
her back to me
as one passing
through a door
into silence:
And then turned
to smile at
me radiant with
all I’ve ever
desired rising
in my heart
like Venus on
the half shell
amid the foam
of my balls &
then looking for
one second like
another woman
on another beach
in another love
which ended
in another surf
& I felt then
the horrid ironic
fatefulness
of the Ocean,
a wave which
parts the thighs
of a love which
births departure:
But Donna
just smiled
bittersweetly and
then as if she
had come to
a decision walked
back and gathered
up Nicky and
put him in
her car telling
him to sleep:
For a few minutes
the boy’s face
(resembling Donna
in the eyes
but the rest
a cipher of
some other man’s
love) crying in
the window but
Donna was
unmoved &
the head slowly
disappeared
like a setting
sun into silence:
Donna then looked
over at me
& smiled the way
she did that night
up at Fern Park
Station & then
lowered her
body on mine
to kiss me full
and dreamy
as the sea her
body breathing
full against mine
like a surf &
her bones against
my bones as
close as bones
go: Kissed slowly
down my chest
in a wave &
gripped my trunks
with both hands
& then pulled
them down far
enough to take
my startled cock
in her mouth
& slowly, sweetly,
gently, deeply
suck that slender
isthmus of flesh
that separates
I and Thou:
Loving there
what’s impossible
to find and
perilous to forget:
I watched her
for a while glide
up and down
my cock with
slow sure strokes
her mouth a
firm clench on
my slick hardening
length, veins there
pumping out like
clouds rising
over the sea
& her eyes closed
maybe prayerfully
or brokenly or
already somewhere
else — who knows:
Her long dark
blonde hair falling
around her pistoning
mouth like
a waterfall & each
downward stroke
washing me in
that gorgeous sure
river or wave
I always felt
in the sex that
joined Donna
to me: Then I
closed my eyes
& lay back
surrendering to
the pleasure
slowly building
in me, so sweet
& watery, not
urgent in the
way of new lovers
or knowledgeable
or secure like
old lovers: Rather
we were as
one receiving
a last kiss from
waters now receding:
Oh drifting boat
on sunny waters
on God’s now
gorgeous earth,
a breeze softly
raking the
glittery soft surf
& Donna’s hand
now cupping my
balls squeezing
& gently milking
the dangerous
seed rising up
there as she
settles her mouth
all the way
down to my
pubic bone &
I’m coming, coming,
rising up in
a wave of white
screaming joy
and she doesn’t
let go but takes
all of me in,
drinks my salty
sticky seed &
it feels so
strange so
utterly fucking
sweet as if
my balls were
dissolving & the
rest of me to
in this tingling
toe twitching
exhalation
emptying
erasing &
killing my
every conflicted
motion: O stay
there for just
a little while,
Breviary — linger
in the lavish
mouth which swallows
me whole: a
mother’s mouth
giving suck &
a receiving back
the milk she
gave me: The
ocean stretching
like a blue gray
angel’s blessing
& “Broken Wings”
on the blaster
true just for those
seconds and
so eternally true:
All the futile
stupid arrogant
wrongheaded
cruel self
destructive
things I wreaked
with that white
boy’s penis
absolved in
that melting
molten spasm:
These million
words flocking
in the wild sperm
cells flocking
to no home
down her throat
just like the
sea welcomes
no home I
have ever built:
One of my
hands inside
her bathing suit
clutching a
breast squeezing
up a nipple
desperate never
to let go:
This gloriously
beautiful ocean
of an angel
of a woman
nursing my
dolphin on the
wave it still
rides: O crest
& dissolve and
there’s no
way to remain
right there, no
way to prevent
the day’s return
into slow focus,
Donna letting
go with her
mouth kissing
the tip of my
glistening cock
& pulling my
shorts back
up with a sigh
patting my cock
and nuts one
one one one
one one one
one one one
final time: Wipes
her mouth with
her hand her
eyes slowly
refocusing taking
aim again beyond
me: I lift
up on an elbow
& try to push
her down to
kiss, return the
favor by lapping
away at her
sweet milky
thighs but she
shakes her head
sad and firm
& takes a drink
of wine instead
& looks farther
out to a sea
already gone:
O lift up from
that beach O
falcon o sad
sea eagle up
up over to
the edge of that
one infinite
spasm that
crashed up out
of me and through
me at the
same time like
the wave of
the woman of
the sea anointing
& cursing
me like that
baptismal wave
that crested
over me at 14:
Rise up over
the ocean’s
suck & haul
o angel of
my eternally
misbegotten love:
Up over the
rim of the green
ocean and up
up through the
blue heavens:
Up over the
hurl of this
ancient song:
Can you take
me higher o
peregrine
falcon up
where only
blind men see:
Up over the
edge of
my ruination
at your altar
o dolphin muse:
Join me with
my aborted
children, my
daughters of
Neptune: Can
you fly me up
over all to this
warm place
where my seed
lays waiting for
your welcoming
egg in the
belly of all
dead loves: Donna’s
son begins
crying in the
car & she
goes to retrieve
him & we start
packing up
to go: “Run
to Her” on the
blaster already
ironic and Donna
asks me
irritably hey
isn’t there anything
else you can
play? Something
that rocks?




COLLECTIBLES, 50 PERCENT OFF

August 2001

It’s a mercilessly hot Sunday
afternoon in downtown Sanford.
The sun lords over us like a
fat developer whose high broils
are pure whim—a careless ruin.
A few antique shops are open
today, welcoming us few shoppers
whose pace is less Shop Until You Drop
than Browse Til Ya Drowse.

Inside where it’s almost cold
—thank God!—I scan shelves
piled high with someone
else’s history, crap which,
at the right auction on the
right day, with the right wind
at our lucky sails and two
warring collectors upping the ante,
could sell for, well, more than
that 24-carat sun up there, yee-haw:

Antique lace and depression
glass, old toys, mason jars on quaint
kitchen hutches, boxes of sheet music,
portraits of someone else’s dead relatives
—like that sad severe woman hanging
near a window, her lower lip pinched
a parcel of parched Florida farmland
long sold off to developers.

I’m lost amid all this stuff.
You see, I’m just passing time
while my wife arranges linens
and lamps in her booth
in an antique mall down the street.
In times past when we drove
out on Saturdays searching
for fresh veins of cheap good stuff
along the back roads of Florida,
I trolled along til I was numbed at
the sheer volume of so much pricey
bad stuff. None of it I figured had
any place in what I then called home.

Now I try to read each cup and
cast-iron skillet as a clue to what might
lead me home, and I’m eager for any
message I can find. It’s still a language I
hardly fathom — a few things I know
to sift the haystack for like years
(Thirties or Forties) and types (tourist
memorabilia, ceramic burros from Mexico).
Stuff not distinctive for their market
value but simply just because my wife
loves that stuff. It’s hard to find.

Today I strike out and so walk slowly out.
The shopkeeper, a woman in her 50s
who’s commiserating with another woman
at the front counter, asks, Didn’t find
anything to take home with you?
Not today, I smile, gearing my voice
to sound like I would have if I did.

I know it’s a hard, unprofitable
business, something most people do
because they simply love the work
of finding and then dream of selling it well.
It’s sad to see so much of what’s out there
it just sit and sit on dusty shelves,
forgotten again on a more visible shelf.

Sure, it’s overpriced, and hardly fitting any
house: But here it is, resistant to so much
we also know, untranslatable in such
high heat, on a day when most people have
thronged to Target or Wal-Mart, where
faux stuff can be bought at sweatshop prices.

My wife plans to close her booth at the end
of next month, giving up on a 3-year
dream of making her own way on what
she really loves. I think of her standing
in her booth, arranging and rearranging
a pewter dish in front of a coffee table book,
hanging linens she’s bought as cheaply
as you can and so carefully cleaned
and ironed and labeled and brought now
to market. She does this as lovingly
as she created the house I don’t live
in any more. And so I take all of this

stuff—iota of eternity, ephermata of the
woman I love’s self-determination—
with a new and deadly seriousness.
We’ll find a way to move her goods,
even if it sells at 50 percent off. Although
she leaves the business I hope it’s just
for a little while. One half of paradise
is always better than an acre of what’s dead.



DANNY BOY

2004

It’s Monday morning and school
is back in already, compressing
this artery of traffic even
thicker the sleepy occludage,
everyone at the wheel
looking haggard and
hard-eyed, fraught somehow
deeper with the world’s
ten thousand revolving
cares. I wait four lights
to get through Clarcona-
Ocoee Road trying not to
give Monday morning’s
angel of despair any
more pissy script for
the big collection basket
being passed down the Trail,
though I sure as hell want
to as a migraine is
now leaking shrill dollops
of mercury through the
ill-cobbled landscape
of used tire dealerships and
Burger Kings and
half-empty strip malls.
I switch from NPR’s
news of terror (which
is not news but merely
ghost-sightings and
channel-pratter,
the preter-reportage
of a man defending
his house against
his own nightmare) to
a Bill Evans CD
(Empathy, 1962) cooling
down to his quiet solo
rendition of “Danny Boy,”
that traditional Irish
drinking song. Yes, it
has been a long careworn
road to here, hasn’t
it? The Trail stretches
a very long ways back,
and sadly there are
still so many miles
up ahead yet to travel
before getting home.
Accepting now my
day would also
have to freight
this sick migraine
now settled like a
black turkey buzzard
to raven my shoulders
neck and head, I
counted my day’s
labors and wondered
how I’d manage
to pay every piper.
Ah well. An SUV
zoomed past on my
right, affording me a
fast glance of a small
face in the back seat
looking at me in
that blank curiosity
of passage, a young boy
with pale blue eyes
and then the car
swerved and
wedged in front of
me ahead. My foot
hit the gas pedal and
I zoomed up to let
the fucker know there
wasn’t any room there
to start, but I was
too tired for that shit
and just let up &
resumed concourse as
a fellow weary traveller on
this road of travail
we drive daily for love
or money or
some fetish of both.
Up above through
my windshield I
see a broad span of
uncut blue sky, no sign
of traffic there, no
Burger Kings or
titty bars, no
boundary stones,
no jaded highways
to crease the brow.
Just God’s blue heaven
and the margeless sea,
that big house where
Bill Evans plays “Danny Boy”
for everyone who
found their way at
last off this sad long
Trail. Play a song for the
rest of us too, Bill,
still stuck in traffic
down here on
Monday morning
so far from home
and so far yet to go
we can’t hear the
music of either shore.