If you’re remotely interested in what I sound like when I read poetry, here’s my recent poem, “Neighborhood Bar,” as a demo recording I did for our band, The Duende Project — that’s me on guitar and vocal. Wide open for feedback…
Daily Archives: February 18, 2016
The Long Coda
No mistake — we
will end in Music.
Take the full journey
to how we got here
and whether we start
back at First Drum (maybe
when feet shook the earth
while running or maybe
when stick hit stick or log
or rock hit rock — or skull)
or at First Song (maybe
with first imitation of wind or bird
or maybe when prehistoric lovers’ voices
pleased each others’ ears and
repetition led to connection) we ran it in Music
and we will end in Music.
We will end in Music,
blood singing through us.
We will end in Music,
wind in our hair.
We will end in Music,
hearts stepping down.
We will end in Music,
our lyric closing as we close.
If we were anything, ever,
we were Music — there was always
melody within, harmony to be
sought and struggled for, rhythm
to frame it all; and when we’re gone
our survivors shall sing us home.
We end in Music
which itself never ends, and
perhaps that has been the nature
of God all along: the continuing Song
going on and on. The coda
of Beginning. The last lingering Chord.
Boxes
Take the pain of being yourself
and box it up. Take the pain
of being in love with another
and box it up, put them on
the same shelf in the same
dark room. Take the anger
at all the maddening others
and box it up then box that box
again and again put it in the same
dark room. Did you notice something
about how a poor person prayed
for the rich? Did it sicken you? Box
box box it up and put put put it
in the back of the stifling room. Box
the fear and the residual hatred,
box the last words of any martyr, box
the clean air up in a dirty old box
and box it all into the suffocating heat
of the room where the boxes,
all the boxes, are starting to glow
from within as if the contents, finally,
have stopped smoldering
and are starting to blaze. Pretty soon
they’ll set everything on fire
and there’s not a drop of water
within reach, which somehow
you find comforting and somehow
seems like a release and somehow
seems like what you expected
from the first time you shoved a box
in there, turned your back, and tried
to pretend it wasn’t there as you closed the door
with a smile for the onlookers, saying
well, that’s that.
Dark Matter 