The Siren's Dionysian Romp

Last night I dream a panoply of ensuing scenes, frames perhaps of one film -- Priapus in a garden with his monstrous erect red penis; a pair of harlots or harpies grinning at me in a smoky bar, inviting me to their killing pool; a man on some outskirts of a settlement, offering me his child, saying he can’t or won’t take care of him; an old Greek vase-painting of some black winged women; a garden hose or snake, more I can’t remember now. At the end of the dream a voice says, say all of these things to say the Siren ...

***

“Other {Sirens} again pipe for Dionysos and his attendant Satyrs in an early red-figured vase, personifying again possibly the kind of music that could only be heard by adepts in a state of ecstasy. The association with Sirens with other-worldly joys probably explains their presence on tombs. But the practice does not become widespread until the 5th century BC, though figures presumably of the deceased appear in scenes with Sirens playing lyres and squatting on pillars.”

-- John Pollard, Seers, Shrines, and Sirens: The Greek Religious Revolution of the Sixth Century BC


DIONYSOS AND THE SIRENS

Nov. 15

How oddly fertile these
late-year scritches
down owl-eyed page, as if
the dying world sieves
its receding sap
through my achey
breaky brain, down
into fragrant groves
so heavy with sweet
fruit the whole underworld
wants to awaken me,
unburdening itself
of my dreams.
No wonder Sirens were
carved on gravestones
in signature of the joys
down under and across
the last-flung tide; they
play their lyres and
squat on phallic pillars
like the ligature of
a song welled from
the drunken mad
ecstatic god himself,
the one whose jones
for life in overdrive
kills so many
when they try
singing it in
all stupid profane
too literal
ways the topside
life errs down
to salty doom.
I remember how
heavy metal surged
out of my radio
at night when
I was 13, a
marauding nightmare
perfectly stout and
hooved and wild,
amplifying (even
at the tinny drone
demanded by my mother)
my dream of a girl’s
desire and acceptance
of me up to immortal
decibels, a crash
and thrash and whinny
wail thundering
right up the glistening
trail between my
imagined love’s
eventually-parted
thighs. Santana,
Led Zeppelin, Mountain,
Cream -- the early 70s
were awash with these
metal-finned and -winged
gods of howl; and
the welcome by which
I wildly received this
music was the
greater part of my
body’s awakening,
that loud sound
mirrored by my
own body’s hormonal
roar, those power
chords fisting up my
pubic hairs, cracking
the alto of my voice
revealing a strange
baritone, my penis
stretching out beneath
the sheets like a blue
trombone or a guitar’s
stallion neck while
the rock hero nails
the high notes right
at its chin. “Mississippi
Queen,” “Black
Magic Woman,” “Crossroads,”
“The Lemon Song” --
those songs caught me
by my mind’s balls
and hurled me toward
that raucus troop
marauding just ahead,
those peers who were
smoking dope & fucking
girls in the backs of
souped up cars, who
were playing in bands
for dorks like me -- Oh
I wanted like death
to follow those wings
of heavy metal
out of my
lonely boy’s suburban
curfewed window
and up over the
entire dreary world
and join my
rock gods on
their stages, delivering
those hammer-spasms
of burning noctal
juice, no longer just
a listener but music’s
own bone-wild thyrsus,
whacking a cherry-red
guitar down on
the stage’s floor like
the god’s hammer which
enchants the enraged ground.
It was a deathlike ecstasy,
not much removed
fro that white rictus
of my diddler’s joy
beneath the sheets
alone at the least
vestage of a boy’s day:
That moment when
this world collapses with
a gong and we pass
over, if only for an
engorged cuspate
second, into a blue bliss
which both womb and
tomb are fragments of,
the relics of a cathedral
far under and behind
the last room of the
dream. There, at
excitation’s exalted
reach, the Sirens perch
and sing, atop the totem
amps and guitars I
heard in a tiny
tinny radio on
another boring night
of my so-called
teenaged life; they
perch there in
my memory which
so fruits and frets
today’s solo on
an air-guitar that’s
forever fixed at the
song’s highest amplitude,
held high for the last
chord which cracked
me wide, awoke and
bewitched me at the
same time, a sound
I revel here at this
silent cold still hour,
the patch chord
still in my boy’s navel,
still rapt in heaven’s
heavy metalled grind.




FENDER MUSTANG

From “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

Spring 1971:


I.

I was 14 when
my friend Steve and
I decided to get
into a band like
Led Zeppelin,
do cool stuff,
get all the girls
We begged our moms
to get us guitars.
For two weeks
we cruelly jammed
that button of love
and guilt in them,
saying how having
a guitar was all
we ever really wanted,
how we would
work extra chores,
vacuum rooms,
clean dishes, etcetera.

Being little men
in houses forsaken
by fathers,
our moms
broke down as we
knew they must
and took us
to the music
store in Winter Haven
to pick out
rental guitars.
After a long wistful
scan at the Caddys
on the top rack—
Strats, Rickenbackers,
Flying V’s, Les Pauls
—I lowered my sights
to the rental rack
below and fell in love
with this red Fender
Mustang. It was
a kid’s learning
guitar, a cheapo
Strat clone
probably cranked
out in Japan:
ah but it was
also cherry red
like Corvette coupe,
like the dark
wet insides
of a girl’s mouth.

That Mustang was
my first real purchase
on puberty, no longer
the fat kid imprisoned
in his room but
newly-tall and skinny
and ready for the world,
ready to rock.

The guy who taught
me to play was
some longhair
who loathed my
kiddie taste for
Grand Funk Railroad
and Black Sabbath,
but since it
was the best
inducement to
practice he
grudged me
three minutes
to puzzle the riffs
to “Are You Ready.”
I sat there
as he transmuted
radio dross
to living gold.
Playing the
riffs put me
onstage somehow,
as if the chords
were the first
words of a
new language.

At the end of
the lesson I unplugged
my Fender from
the teacher’s amp
(so big and ballsy
compared to that
whippet of an amp
I had at home)
and laid it back
in its case.
The inside of
the case was
a plush blue velvet;
midnight blue
and cherry red
felt like all
the magic erupting
around me those
days, shimmering
pool water and
full fire moons by
the lake and
the blue eyes
of all the really
popular girls,
impossible to reach,
impossible to resist,
my heart impeccably red.

III.

Back in my room
at home I’d go
over the riffs again
and again, plugged
into that tiny amp
& sworn to play low.
Practicing guitar was
one of the first necessary
evils I learned,
that patient start from
the easiest beginning
and then working
through to the end
of the lesson in
that dreary Mel Bay
Guitar System book.
And then I’d head
into the songs
I wanted to play,
going through them,
taking time to smooth
the rough parts.
I remember practicing
the ligature for “Ride
Captain Ride,” learning
my first solo note for note.
Playing it & feeling
in my hands something
forming harder than
the lines of my
biceps when lifting
wieghts. Ripe with
the scent of orange
blossom and Boone’s Farm.
Thrilling to make
music sure
to thrill girls.

I tried it out:
Derinda one
of the neighborhood
girls who’d visit
when my mom
was out
sitting on my bed
while I cranked that
amp and muscled
“Are You Ready.”
Afterwards I
lifted weights
and then wrestle with
Derinda on my bed,
our tongues soon
engaged in a
splashy battle royale,
my hand trying to work
its way down
the top of her
t-shirt to get
to her big breasts
which were always
too far away.
I sorely needed
practice in
everything
in the world.


IV.

Two weeks after
Steve got his
guitar he lost
all interest in
it, surer at
playing football
and riding his Stingray
bike through
the subdivision.
But I remained,
less sure
in anything else,
lifting that
Fender Mustang
from its blue lap
feeling all the latent
power in it, my fingers
at its strings so potent
with longing.
Playing all the cool music.
Getting all the pretty girls.
Ravaging the world.




KILLER TUNE

from “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

Autumn 1970:

Humble Pie’s
“I Don’t Need (No
Doctor” was the
killer song of
Autumn 1971
that launched
me into Winter
Haven High.
A punchy mean
piece of rock
jackhammery
launching from
E minor -- a
yaw of savage
emptiness --
up to G to A
hold that A
A- G/G,
bending the G-note
up a grinding
tad (the difference
between a kiss
and frenching)
before slamming
back to E-minor,
home plate
where the next
progression
takes is infernal
swing a the moon.
Man did that
song rock!
Down deep
in my inner ear
long after I
heard it on
the radio,
ringing in my
senses as I
got off the bus
outside the school
and went over
to the 7-11
to smoke a cigarette.
Fat no longer,
I was ready for
the world, even
public school.
Ladies and Ladies,
meet Bond. James
fucking Bond.
“I Don’t Need
(No Doctor)” and
the boy-king on
the prowl, Cupid
in all his feral
puberty. That’s
the genius
of killer songs:
their fuse is
a fusion of
lover and bedlamite,
hungry for deaths
big and small.
Few bands
have more
than one of them.
A killer song
is a miracle,
a precise moment
when all the
energies of the
old ones wake
in the minds
and hands of
the musicians
in a band merging
in a chord progression
(always in a minor key)
that suddenly lifts
and hurls like
a dragon up out
of this sleepy
world of work and hurt,
burning all suburbia
to char. At 14 I heard
that music run deep
and dark through
the red core of my
bland bland school
days, slipping past
the walls of fearful
Christian mores.
The earth belongs
to eternal delight
and God the
door shut terribly
tight against
our deadly Dionysian
swoon. I don’t need
no doctor, I don’t
need no white Christ,
no parents, no school,
just let me run
shaggy and hard
over the pretty girls
in the hall wearing
polkadot minis
and big plastic boots.
Knocking aside that
Mel Bay silliness
with my Mustang
to get to the real
stuff-- songs like
“Sweet Hitchiker”
and “Heartbreaker”
& cranking up
that amp all the
way (my sister
howling in the living
room) and
squeezing that
bad muscle with
every iota of
revenge against
the world. Taking
what was mine. America
was in retreat those
days, numbed by ‘Nam
and the bullets
of National Guardsmen
and sappy sweet
soft rock the big
mama tits we hid
within: But others
kept exploring
the hard dark zone,
kamikazes like Hendrix
and Morrison still
burning high like
nova, a burning
compass for the
likes of us who
would follow that
road at the interface
of desire and denial.
Like the utter
meltdown that happens
during Led Zepplin’s
“Since I’ve Been Loving
You” when Jimmy Page
takes a Delta blues
and turns it into
a pure magma
of 64th notes
raging and rearing
and roaring up and
down the neck
of his Gibson ES330.
We who would
not, could not accept
our ends inscribed
on the margins of
our lives, like the
driver of that
Dodge Challenger
in “Vanishing Point”
who would not,
could not stop
for sleep
or love or
cop, not
even for
that bulldozer
at the end.
The impact only
sent him hurling
into pure desire.
My wife’s nephew
James died in
the full flower
of his youth
going at that speed,
spinning and
whirling so fast
the Honda
broke in two
when it hit
that tree
& sent the
hood spinning
back across
4 lanes of I-95.
His death
had the pacing
of a killer song
real teeth.
Hell I thought
had fangs
for doors
when I was 14
but when I sat
behind Sue
on a motorbike outside
Derinda’s house
on a night when
the moon
was “I Don’t Need
(No Doctor), my
hands could not stop
as they trembled up
under her t-shirt
and then in a gasp
of surrender
hurled up to
cup and squeeze
her 14 year old
breasts (oft-
touched by
others by then).
Forget that tender
sweet music of love.
The killer
song is true
expression, primal,
unalloyed by
our civilized
rococo. Down the
years I came to
know other killer
songs -- Alice Cooper’s
snarl in “Halo of Flies”
and Edgar Winter’s
monster “Frankenstein.”
Genesis’ “The Knife”
off their live album,
when Phil Collins
rampages on the kit
exceeding every
limit I thought there
was to song.
The manic tropes
of Eno’s “Driving
Me Backward” with
its fusillades of
jissomy sounds.
Roxy Music’s “The
Thrill of It All”
an anthem of
every nocturnal
prowl. Thin
Lizzy’s “Got To
Give It Up”
which I played
with Slick Richard,
all snap and
vinegar unleashing
guitar wails
that fuck
the very crevice
of the moon.
Or A/C D/C’s “Sin City”
which we also
played, viciously climbing
up the minor gradient,
picking its riffs
and modulations
o so carefully, lurching
into pools of dark desire
only to pull back,
intensifying through
restraint, the
balls getting madder
and they turn
darker blue.
A killer song perches
on a racing stallion
on a bitter
cold night out
somewhere on
the farthest
steppes of the heart,
gathering up
all a generation’s
angst in five
minutes only
to burn out
of control for
another 30 seconds
It is turning one
cheek to
spread the
other. And like
a hurricane
hurling foam
and fringe
many miles offshore,
I knew none
of this when
I walked into
a dance in September
1971 and the
band was playing
“I Don’t Need
(No Doctor)”
and I grabbed
the first girl
I saw and asked
her to dance.
It was Jane Anne
Baker and she
smiled when
she saw my
killer light
and angularity
and said yes
o yes


LAMENT FOR THE PLAYERS

from “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

They came and went so fast,
I think, now that it’s been 30 years
since I began to idolize those
guitar studs jamming onstage
shaking and sweeping and strutting.
I’d be lying if I said
they were all great at guitar --
oh they were, but not purely,
as if poise were more piquant
than playing the notes.
I mean Mark Farner of Grand Funk
and Tommy Iommi from Black
Sabbath, they were as much
music in a teen’s longing
as the gods Hendrix
Clapton or Page.

For all of us there is
a brief set of years at puberty
that defines the boundaries
of our musical estate:
For me, the years are 1970-74,
“Layla” and “Paranoid”
and “Are You Ready”
and “Halo of Flies”
and “Mississippi Queen”
and “Stairway to Heaven”
all part of that mesh.
Forged in those years,
my guitar heart has
always erred on this
side of the B’s --
Bombast, Bravado, Balls,
Bitchen. Big 70s,
BigHair 80s. I never
could figure out
those small guitar
New Wave bands or
what followed to eventually
make all mine such a bad cliche.
That laughable Mark Farner
still struts inside me, saxon
savage, hairy, loud, a rooster
in the henhouse of PreUnsafeSex.
I cannot make him understand
computers. He bangs on
this keyboard like tympani.
He doesn’t grok mortage
or marriage. So I keep
him at some far arms’ reach,
opening the cage doors
now and then to give
him a drink of that ole
dirty moon in some
pretty thing at the gym.
Let him growl when
I’m on the treadmill,
shake his wet hair
when I’m lifting weights.
Feel his balls swing
as she passes by.
Caught in limbo
between my growing up
and this ennui for
what has been lost,
he’s like a ‘62 Les Paul
that can never die,
silver as the moon
and forever leaping
at the final chord.



DIONYSOUSE ROCKS

from “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

On those who enter the same rivers,
ever different waters flow
-- and souls are exhaled
from moist ((dark)) things.

-- Heraclitus (B12)


Spokane, WA,
Autumn 1978:

My rock n
roll heart
birthed that
autumn under
the star of
fell Dionysos,
Loosener,
least and
last respected
of all gods:
Cruelty and
delight upon
the cusp of
a power chord
& loose living
drunk and
dunking my
head up to
the hilt
her mad brine:
The rapture
and terror
of life are
so profound
because they
are intoxicated
with death.
Life which has
become sterile
totters to
meet its end,
but love and
death have
welcomed and
cling to each
other passionately
from the
beginning,
writes Walter
Otto in Dionysos
Myth & Cult:
The music
of Dionysos
was pure rock
n roll a clash
of bright brass
timbrels &
drums, hot
thyrsus
spearpoints
glinting with
bloodied sun:
The scythe of
love cut me
clean in half:
Gone all
of my austere
new agey
clarities in
the clarion
maw of a wave:
No metaphor
of her could
suffice out
in the weed
fields I now
found myself
mowing: returned
to Spokane
after summer:
She was gone:
The river some
small paltry
trickle, barely
a sip of her
there but I
drank it for
all she was worth:
Dave and I
jammed on
Stones and Roxy
tunes after
no luck running
ads for bandmates,
heating up
that cold tiny
house with our
rockballs while
the clutter of
bills and empties
piled up round
us & Dionysos
opened the night
to us in all
her terrible
swoon: loveless
& broke I
swam out
toward those
who were
drowning, out
where delight
and death are
sides of the
same song:
Sweet Karla
whose boyfriend
was in the pen
for murder
who said little
though her
body was a
cathedral of
pert breasts
and trim belly,
white panties
with a small
purple ribbon
that pulled down
to reveal a
wildjuiced pussy
hauling me
in to pink
sacraments
her ass bucking
so hot and
fast I always
came in just
two dunks
which sourced
her real fast
on my rock
lobster: Old
loves Landi
and Terri
a night each
friendly amid
the grim needs
of the grind,
Landi rubbing
my sperm into
her grand breasts
(nipples glistening
bluebrown) &
Terri sucking
up my nacht
nougat & then
grinding on
me till her
mouth opened
in operatic
Ah Ohs:
Dionysos
washing me
back ashore come
morning, alone
and festering:
A guitar is
the jaw of an
ass sweeping
down Ninevah
and New York:
Saturdays I
practiced and
practiced, nailing
Tom Petty’s
“Breakdown” and
Foreigner
“Hot Blooded” and
the Cars “Just
What I Needed”:
cracked open
a beer and sucked
hard on her
ciderish moon
boob, thirsting
wilder in the
deepening cold:
Karen a half
crazed mother
who shrieked
of disorder locked
in a house with
a son & the
heat cranked
too high: But
her cunt clutched
and clenched
my cock like
the fist of
Venus herself,
milking my hard
harder penis
with a shrill
shattered joy:
And as I
collapsed on her
splattering and
spluttering
she erupted
in tears crying
so hard I thought
she’d die of grief:
I got the fuck
outta all those
places leaving
behind a
banshee bouree:
Hungover and
pissy went
back to the
JC Penney
stockroom busting
ass & bitching
how the day
steals every
dram of delight,
cardboard cartons
drying the river
from my fingers
(cracking and
then bleeding):
The stockroom
was a theater
of all I was not:
O how I
wanted a band
& the road &
stages high above
this basement
drudgery: Heard
crowds roaring
for me in those
cluttered aisles
of stock: there
was even a girl
Chris who checked
in & priced
stock to remind
me how far
the sea had
receeded: She
looked like
Becky & looked
at me with
the same eyes
but she had
a man and
a kid and
languished in
despair pricing
baby jumpers
and ugly sweaters:
No hope for me
with her though
I ranted and
raged for her
every day,
safe from the
suffrage of love:
Oh how I
took it all back
to the music,
mad now in
the dessication
of summer with
cold dark
biting down from
everywhere:
I was warm
only wearing
a guitar or
plunging in some
her & chilled
to freeze bone
so fast fresh
out of whatever
clench & worn
out from booze &
pot & speed
& no sleep &
addicted to
the scythe
which sharpens
as it loosens
heads from
all sense:
Bull-roarer
Bromios,
tearing me
down to the
real rock music:



OH KAY

from “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

August 1982, Orlando, FL:

Warmer foggy
morning here as
my wife sleeps
upstairs
(only the second
time she’s been
able to since
her hysterectomy)
with cat Violet
ensconced under
the covers next
to her belly
(V. loves
wombing most
when my wife wears
her warmsilk
pajamas): Buster
now content
asleep in
the living room
after waking me
at 4 a.m.
for A Treat
and A Pet:
Streetlights
outside like
vague pearls
in viscous murk,
soggy & drippy
& warm like
ye olde waters
of birth
& memory
& this song:
Leah and Mike
next door partied
long and late,
the voices of
revellers piercing
our sleep and
peeling it back
with its
unwelcome
unwholesomeness,
hoots & hollers
& country music
& pickup truck
peelouts round
3 a.m. like
a demon jest
of nights I
lost so long
ago: Leah
and Mike are
far better
neighbors than
we: Caring
& open where
we selfishly
enclose, enwomb:
They can harry
one night of
old folks’ peace
(we were in
bed as usual
before the
9 a.m. bell
which wakes
the revenant):
Between the
last drunken
farewell and
cat Buster’s first
yowly cockle
doodledoo
I dreamed something
vague and yeasty
like a fertile
furtive embrace:
standing beneath
stadium stands
with some girl
& following her
to a house in
Winter Park
late at night
where porn
girls sing poke
arias & then
trying to get
a ride to my
car so I could
get back to my
mother’s house
in time to
get ready for work:
Deep beneath
my married bed
I’m wrapped
in pubic
tendrils which
sink from
middleage down
through youth
and childhood
into the massy
maternal cleft
from which all
syllables of
dream are but
bubbles of:
I don’t recall
now her name
or face: Whether
she had big
tits or poochy
ass, brown eyes
or blue,
blonde or
red pubes, nada,
none of that
remains, just
a warm sigh
in my ear
wet with
sea susurration
urging my
pen to
sing sing sing:
And so after
two cups of
coffee & 2
Busterpetums
& a diddle
daze of
unscribbable
delights &
a dig in
Whitman (“Toward
the fluid and
attaching character
exudes the sweat
of the love of
young and old,/
From it falls
distill’d the
charm that mocks
beauty and
attainments,/ Toward
it heaves the
shuddering
longing ache of
contact.”: I swim
out into those
sea-rapt washes
of fog leaving
behind my
marriages &
mortgages &
graves & carpal
tunnel malaise
& all semblance
of the day’s
senex ochering
to join myself
19 years ago
in a lawn chair
in back of
my mother’s
house on that
clear hot
August morning
which began
my 24th
birthday: I
was baking
away a rough
hangover,
poisonous sludge
sweating out
from my pores
slowly as I
lay there dazed
trying to recall
the night before:
It had been
a week of
frustrated excess,
drinking every
night at the
Station finding new
hells to raise
& darker deeps
to wake to:
One night a
guitar player
from a cool
Texas band
drank long with
me, swapping
tales of bands:
A fellow traveller,
I thought, but he
later said he
just wanted to
lick me all over:
The next night
I got drunk &
bumped into
Judy my old
surfer girlfriend
& she challenged
me to follow
her home so
I did, racing after
her at 95 mph
through orange
groves & far fields
to some guy’s
house -- her current
boyfriend, out
of town -- I
nailed her on
the floor next
to her bed
hard and gleeful,
taking what
was never mine,
beating her
this once:
Wednesday and
Thursday I roamed
other bars in
search of new
sounds of new
pussy but I
was by then
quite damaged,
undeserving
anything new,
just a goat at
the bar with
his tongue lewdly
lolling to the
left: back to
the Station
on Friday night
to drink so
much I didn’t
recall the last
half of it --
who I spoke
with or where
I went afterward
or how I got
home: the week’s
excess and expense
racking my body
with guilt as I
vented my
bad humours to
the sun, furious
and defeated that
I could not find
a quench in
Florida’s dark
citrus bowl: Give
it up, exhale
defeat into
the feral winds
of that day,
hot with Set’s
equatorial tejas:
Bake and sweat
and bake
and sweat
as the radio
plays Journey’s
“Who’s Cryin’ Now,”
that fretless bass
reminding me
of a dream where
I was in the
Spokane river
floating like a
cork down the
foaming thrash
down from the
mountains into
Spokane over
the falls and
down down down
to my Evanston
house-of-childhood
where I met
a “matured” Jeff
and Rudy: They
invited me and
Dave to rejoin
them in their
killer band, our
Slick Richard: I
felt naked,
afraid to speak,
guilty that I
didn’t even own
an electric
guitar anymore:
I touched the
strings of a
semiacoustic
bass & felt
the poppy ripeness
there, dark
whiskey power
inside the
moon’s sea-vowel:
Who’s crying
now as the song
washed the
dream away
and the sun
of my birth
royal above,
Lugnasdah’s
gold harvest-scythe
mowing my
miseries,
restoring me
by midafteroon
to find yet
again that
hunger fro what
waits beyond
the crepuscular
skirts of
early evening:
And so up
to the Station
yet again
with my last
20 bucks and
drinking slow
& guilty, feeling
far from poised
to plunge:
Unworthy,
unwelcome
beggar at
the courts of
delight: Traded
shots with
my Station
buddy Klaus
(a friend
of Holly’s this
rock Teuton
who loved
schnapps and
The Scorpions
and nailing
girls just
the way I did):
Just a couple
of tridents at
the bar glistening
with schnapps
and talk of
old pussy: I
was starting to
leave after
the third set
when Klaus
heard of an after
hours party &
invited me along:
Why not? Take
this sad-assed
birthday out
to the bitter
low tide wilt:
Some dorky
guy’s expensive
house in a
jazzy subdivision,
big pool, billiard
room with a bar,
muscular stereo
hammering the
3 a.m. night
with Van Halen:
Shrewdly none
of the band or
bartenders had
been invited
so the B-list
guys could
have a shot
at A-list
crack lured
with promises
of coke &
bubbly: I set
up behind the
bar to sling
spiked drinks
at the ladies,
shaking my hair
and laughing,
onstage this
once: Caught
the eye of this
one curly blonde
girl with a
mischievous
big smile &
breasts heaving
like Valkyries
at the fabric
of her tropic
blouse: oh hymen
o hymenee
some sacred
dance here
sickleman and
maid at the
rose hedges
of encounter
mid-1981
wearing the
mask of
bartender and
rock babe: I
have no idea
how I got there
or how it began
but those first
moments of
play with her
-- shaking my
hair to the
Police doodoo
doodoo dadada
da and Kay’s
smiling wide &
shaking along,
my hand passing
a vodka OJ
over to her
and her fingers
touching mine
more than she
needed to:
There, there
we stepped
out of ourselves
into the
immortal coil,
shedding history
to enter pure
mystery: Round
5 a.m. we
took a skinny
dip in the pool
with Klaus
and his girl
du nacht:
Somehow we
weren’t naked
but pure in
those blue
burning depths:
While the
party roared
from the house
& the night
above drinking
up our pale
milk as she
waded in close
her full breasts
against my
chest her pubes
mingling with
mine in
the water &
her eyes cat
green and
it all spinning
into motion
so fast o
hymen o hymenee
our voices low
and insignificant
o hymen:
Klaus on the
other side
of the shallows
trying to
prick a pussy
with his long
dick and
the girl looking
mostly drunk
and afunk:
The asshole
host inviting
us in to shoot
a porno movie:
O hymen
O hymenee
brush it aside
sweet holiness
somehow we
bathed it
away in
what had begun
this bower of
silk and gauze with
a lattice of
orchids in startled
widemouthed bloom:
Wide as Buster’s
eyes as he
strains and
strains to see
anything in them,
the faintest
glimmer of
what he hopes
or fears is
there: Blooms
dying of thirst
for what had
begun to
pour within us
— Blue and
more lucent
and deeper
and wilder
than any pool,
all nights,
every sea:
Klaus stole
a couple of
magnums
of the best
champagne
and at dawn
we loaded
into cars to
drive engorged
with night
through sun-
waking suburbs
of lawn sprinklers
and settled folks
in bathrobes
retrieving the
morning paper
& letting the
dog pisscrap:
to some
apartment suburb
(always some
always other)
where Mary lived:
We settled in
a living room
with FM rock
(Blondie “The
Tide is High”
Billy Squire “The
Stroke,” Cars,
Journey, GoGos,
Rod Stewart’s
“Passion” like
gasoline flambe:
Drink champagne
in the labial
folds of Party
which loose
and glisten like
a welcome: Klaus
and Mary head
up to her room
leaving us
in this dazed
space asking
o should we?
When one kis
is fraught with
more than we
can bear and
the mind screams
stop here
stop before its
too late:
Kiss again
slow and
lingering as the
tide foams in
and I’m leading
her upstairs
by the hand into
a spare
bedroom asking
should we wait
feeling all the
potent pregnancy
of the moment
which stills
and silences
and holds us
there impossible
to resist and
terrified to
begin: Anne
Carson writes
in “Eros,”
“As Socrates
tells it, your
story begins
the moment
Eros enters
you. That
incursion is
the biggest
risk of your
life. How you
handle that
is an index
of the quality,
wisdom and
decorum of the
things inside
you. As you
handle it you
come into
contact with
what is within
in you in
sudden and
startling ways.”
Perhaps if
we had waited,
made a date,
spent more hours
talking, fortifying
our respective
beacheads before
passing through
that fragrant
arch: Who knows:
We could have
married &
had six kids:
But that was
not our way,
not the bed
Eros unmade
between us:
At least not
my way -- I
don’t have Kay
to corroborate --
I who could
never be content
to peer through
temple gates
& wait: Character
is fate & so
I just reached
across the
dizzy gap between
I and Thou
and pulled her
close for
a kiss & placed
a hand on
each expectant
breast and
she sighed her
soft surrender
as a ripened
fruit welcomes
breaking open
in a rapture
of rupture:
Sweet citrus
juice spreading
now through
the room as
hunger splits
the curtain wide
and the light
changes from
blue drowse to
fire: She
unbuttoned her
tropic blouse &
the orchard
opened onto
such proud sweet
aching breasts
my gasp pleasing
her infinitely
as she pulled
my face into
the vale of joy
and held me
there as I
breathed, drank,
enflamed: Votive
sanctity falling
away like jeans
and underwear
revealing the
nymph and satyr
at the proscenium
of the god’s
bellowing ire:
She grabbed my
cock &
fisted it with
her hand & mouth
and I licked her
greedily from
breasts to pussy
and plunged the
wild wet there
hot as the
high sun outside
& she gasped
in me in me
in me and
so I did
sliding slow
into a slickened
slough that
grabbed me
& turned me
to feral stone:
Fucking her
in a rage
so white
I couldn’t see
anything but
her eyes
spearing back
& her mouth
going oh
oh oh come
come come
o hymen
o hymenee
she coming
as I came
shout to
shriek & then
licking her
pussy clean
of my come &
licking her
back up her
silk mountain
and throwing
her off the cliff
there & catching
her in the
waters below
with my stiff
pole fucking
her again &
she sucking me
off and me
sucking her
suck & each
of us licking
the other clean
afoam afire
again &
fucking again
and again
& licking
it all clean
back to gauze:
Hours of
this totally
in the throes
of sacred fire
wholly
undeserved,
utterly unexpected,
changing me
correcting me
enslaving me
embalming me
rebirthing me
to the core
in a gasp
and shudder
of forever:
What hurricane
of the body
refused to
exhaust in
our hands cock
mouth breasts
pussy mouth
ass come
sweet swoon
astonishing the
spirit and its
heretofore
arrogant angels,
burned to our
last drop
of napalm
coil, we
disengaged &
came back
into focus weary
shy & utterly
changed: It
was late Sunday
and we both had
to go hours ago:
Dressed sore
& crumpled
& held hands
as we weaved
drunk back
downstairs
where Klaus
was utterly
bored waiting
for me to
drive him home:
She and I
lingered at
the door refusing
to let go
the bower door
& the afternoon
hot as ever
stained with
exhaustion and
guilt and
insufferably
apart, judged
now nigh
criminal by
the rose garden
we had wandered
into alone and
departed from
more song
than any I
have ever found
on any guitar
or page
or rage
or metaphor
or whiskey
or sage
or sooth:



BAND’S END

from “A Breviary of Guitars,” 2000

Summer 1986, Orlando:

My vocal coach
Ron threw a
birthday bash
for for himself
every year
inviting all
his students
past & present
& all the
local bands:
A true insiders’
event to which
I was asked to
not for any
success I’d had
singing or
playing but
because I
regularly plopped
a $20 on
Ron’s piano:
Some apartment
clubhouse somewhere
in the everburb,
beers in buckets,
eddies &
pockets of
local fame all
part of Ron’s
craven stream:
These three
kids probably
16 who Ron
swore would be
the next Van
Halen: Ziggy &
John from Four
In Legion: guys
from Stranger &
other bands: &
yes all of
Innocent Thieves,
Shawn & Rick
who were friends
of Ron &
Paul invited along
because Shawn
& Rick said
we had to talk
that day as a
band: Ron gettting
drunk fawning
on his boys
& holding court:
I walked over to
him to say hi
& he looked at
me bleary & said
hell man I just
can’t take your
money any more
you aint getting
any better: Well
happy birthday
quoth I &
headed for the
beer: the band
gathered on a
deck on a day
already full of
clouds &
distant thunder
& Shawn said
Rick & I are
leaving the band
we got this
Shifters thing
& another
project we d
like to move
on toward:
Paul was silent,
I think he knew
already, looking
dark & darkly
accepting: I
didn’t say
anything either,
just looked Shawn
full in the eyes
letting him know
how much he was
cutting loose in
me & then walked
away chucking
a half full beer
in a garbage
can by the door:
Got in my car
& drove home
deafened by
the sound of a
guitar case
slamming shut
never to truly
open again: 4:10
a.m. here with
Buster whining
at the door —
I’ve shut him in
with me so he
won’t disturb the
rest of the house
with his plaint
—Weary in the
incessant motions
of the week,
lots to do,
finish this work,
finish the
Columba-
Oran piece
(more edits
arrived in the
mail yesterday),
a brochure for
my wife’s
business,
& heavy
production at
work while
Rebecca’s on
vacation,
training Leslie
& the usual
zoom of workouts
& family matters
& turbulence:
The usual
frenetic haul
known as The
Work which is
this life’s
passionate thresh:
Rocked now by
goat fevers like
a bad wake I
can’t resist or
submit to: But
you knew all
that — I’m just
trying to survey
the landscape
which marks the
official end of
the tale: Landscape
created by the
epic it composed,
or vice versa:
All I wanted to
do was learn how
to forget that
passionate music
yet all I’ve
done is recall
it, epically:
Johnson tells
us in his
analysis of
“Paradise Lost,”
“Epic poetry
undertakes to
teach the most
important truths
by the most
pleasing precepts,
and therefore
relates some
great event in
the most affecting
manner: History
must supply
the writer with
the rudiments
of narration,
which he must
improve &
exalt by a
nobler art,
must animate
by dramatic
energy, and
diversify by
retrospection
& anticipation;
morality must
teach him the
exact bounds, and
different shades
of vice &
virtue; from
policy, and
the practice
of life, he has
to learn
discriminations
of character
and the tendency
of the passions,
either simple
or combined:
The physiology
must supply him
with illustrations
& images: To put
these materials
to use, he is
required an
imagination
capable of
painting nature
and realizing
fiction: Nor is
he yet a poet
til he has
attained the
whole extension
of his language,
distinguished
all the
delicacies of
phrase, and all
the colors of
words; and learned
to adjust their
different sounds
to all the
varieties of
metrical
modulation:”
And so judge
this arrogant
history of a
loser with his
guitar and the
older man who
tried to open
a door by
reopening a
guitar case: Not
a noble or
important theme
perhaps but then
who’s to read
this anyway:
Not the poets,
not the babes,
not my mother
or father or
wife: Profane
& unpublishable
I sing of
paradise lost:
I have some
mopping up to
do yet: Record
the resonance
of a guitar case
shutting & the
roads which appeared
just beyond
which lead here:
I promise I
won’t dally for
long & you’ll
finally be
free: Back to
the bliss of your
own back yard:
Maybe for me
too such a
return, unburdened
at last of this:
Now there’s a
gust inside
the god: A wind:
More than a
whine but less
than a welter:




BIG SEA MUSIC

2002

He dipped into his deep blue
pockets and brought out a handful
of foreign gold. The coins burned
in his palm like the suns of strange
countries. He had been among
mermaids and monks and winters
and whales such as I had scarcely
dreamed of...

-- Christopher Rush,
“The Woman and the Waves”


I played that big sea music
for a decade or so tethered
to an angry god: Walls
of water behind me leapt
and spat as I rode my
midnight blue guitar.

The world in that season
was wild with wastrel noise:
Snare-snaps and bass
thunder meshed in the squeal
and squall of humbucker
pickups as we aimed those
metal stallions of song
through a dank peripheries
where women trailed
infinity in their perfect,
young bodies.

I was pickled in that brine,
the same way booze distilled
in me drunk plunder: The homeless
waves of that music splashed
through me and pooled
into some inner, wild sea,
waters which seem
ever sillier the older I get.

I sit here my house quilted
into a quaint Florida town
with the beloved cat in the window
sniffing an approaching front.
Soon I head upstairs to
wake my sweet wife. Soon
the day’s payment begins.

Yet still I can feel that
full Atlantic moon
burning high above,
it’s blue aeries capsizing
this room, this poem.
All I can do now is write
that old music down,
shut the book, and push
off into the day where
no wild waters remain
though their savageries
leave a brutal stain.


SINGER OF THE TIDES

2004

Naked fin-rider atop my
totem crest, you alone
or best sing the changeling
tide which folds and crashes
near yet far. Your song carried
you from Normandy to Cork
a salt jongleur bearing in
your lap the 3 wood cups
of song—dippers you abandoned
long ago to Oran’s Well
and which now slowly
re-appear here, poem by
poem, line after line, in
high heat of heart and
some soulish, lowing ebb.
A fractured dazzle on dark
blue points the way toward
where you’ve gone, brute
rider, Arion merry on every
wave-back bronc served
up by that stony deep:
You travelled down the
throat of your own conductus,
an infernal melody wed
to holy massives roaming
the salt’s roaring hoar keep.
O dread ur-father beneath
my every daddy’s dickdom:
their one long plunge through
Her furrows down earth and
time through bones and ruins
and split ship-holds of lost coin
to that beach where you still rule,
your eyes so blue and feral,
your mouth a harp of tides,
the heaving sea above
the music you still ride, if only
ever and nonce on this weaving
wave-believing tun between
my throat and balls and hand,
jolly rogering that surf forever
in far stampede this hour
before first light,
before it disappears for good
like a cup tossed in the wave
or a song mouthed in the curl.