Saturday, September 22, 2018

Mask And Phenomenon



Metamorphosis of finitude.
            Even here mosquitoes bite;
                   always prey as much as predator.

Winged fleeting shadows,
     heaving brine soup.
Flutes of bone,
    notes ricocheting off cave walls.

                                                    You must only get through one day.

          Nullity and powerlessness.
          Reciprocity and conjugality.
          Bright apophatic nothingness.

Scouring the cemeteries for Shaun the Post.
Jumped a wall,   grave hopping,
             but didn't find him.
     Red rose placed on another.

                                     The landscape thinks
                                                   itself within me.

Post-nasal, itchy, greasy-haired, fuzzy-toothed,
    cross-legged, eyelash follicle depletion.
Every physical imperfection
     yet a magical circle has been drawn.

                                                        Wonder and bedazzlement!

Miracles always
followed by unbelief.

Slave labour bunker excavated
      for a private pebble
           beach

                                                                   Babylon is too rude



Open to the abysmal
character, Kora,
to the crevice between skeletal ribs.

At the limit of reason, intuition. Already possessed
      by the mass?       But no -- attained without reaching
                                                                      the summit first.
 And why is it necessary?
                             Needed to properly give thanks,
                              else like a child;
                        receiving without knowing,
                         innocence without wisdom,
                          unable to truly return
                              the gift.

Jumping over one's
own shadow:
"Ego sum qui sum"

                                                            Sound of small waves
                                                                  Prows cutting through water

     Go to the Dogana point
Bring yer own bottle,
sit, drink and write
sense or nonsense,
Anything that rushes out.
Invoke the masters
without fear of pretension, in an
attempt to make it sing again,
ringing off the rim of
the bathtub.

                                                 Each breath takes
                                                  us to the moment of
                                                creation.

                                                                                                Cracks, stains, mould,
                                                                                               butts, caps, corks,
                                                                                                ship masts, boat motor
                                                                                                     gurgles.
 
                               For one evening me and
                                my wine hold the
                        responsibility of keeping
                          the city afloat.
                            Wager with the adversary.
                       Marco Polo to Dadu to
                     do business with the Khan.
                          Geologic ages compressed
                                                             into seconds.

Wine for cigar exchange
and now a small torch
between my fingers.

                                                               The incarnation must be
                                           held in the body and in the mind,
                                       in the senses and in the
                                                                           breath

Medium of star shine
and street grime.

                                                                                           The guerilla always puffs
                                                                                           a cigar while on a jungle romp.
                                                                                           The edifice of the land.
                                                                                           Ash tapped in the crevice
                                                                                     of the pier stones.
                                                                               Phenomenology is a metallurgy.



Quick puff succession.
Forgetting vowels,
the breath between stops,
impasse and the overcoming of impasse,
 ongoing con-spiracy between God
      and Man.

                          A mad swamp of incomprehension,
                       tension, and then words graced
                              from somewhere above.
                      At this milieu, at this
                middle, something
                      sparks, smoke is produced,
                     the world is fashioned,
                     breath, anima, ruah.
                    Smoke drifts across
                       the sparkling water,
               a line of lights,
                         vaporous curl of letters.

                                                              "As one that would draw
                                                                           thru the node of things"

Cigar a baobab of ash.
Toes free.
Only the stars remain firm and clear.
Not even these --
     a flicker of the death of Heaven,
like the improvisation
of music, forced amnesia,  
            a terrible disease that
has no name.



                                            Floating on the azure air...

                                                                                        Jubilee must be conscious,
                                                                                        elegies of discarded empire,
                                                                                         ignored accordions in the
                                                                                      plaza, body as the intersection of
                                                                                      the physical and spiritual worlds.

The Calypso was the first ship I spotted;
stranded on an island of seduction.

                                                                          Christ changed the nature of category itself.

                   Thurn und Taxis

                                               Mars to my right,
                                             Venus already below the
                                             horizon and behind me,
                                                Neptune, on porpoise-back, straight ahead,
                                            rising and blessing from the sea.

Interface of light, of water, of sound, of blood, of wine. The door was open
             and we rushed to the event.

                                                         Committing the only sin
                                                                of letting a single breath pass
                                                                                         unawares.
                                                                                         
There is no space that
needs completion,
every detail is already
drawn in.

                                            Even this solid rock is sinking.

The deity moves
through love, everyone incomparable, neighbour encountered
                       in the rupture of
                myself.
 
                                                                                             Respirating, perceiving.
                                                                                                 Not a hole in this world.
                                                                                                   Fragmented, distorted,
                                                                                       risk, paradox, ambivalence, precarious.
  
Philosophy must trace the mystery which precedes being.

                                   Naiads, dryads, sylphs
                                        and undines assemble unseen beneath
                               the stars and spheres.
                               Matter is not inert
                                                      but moves.

                                                                                  What a place to drown!

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