Big Music

Sleep, sleep falling deep into
A sedative sleep.
Painted ruby lips, red, red,
The seductress smile.
Solitary and sedentary, the selenium
Sun keeps
Me drifting.
Indian Ocean, South China sea, the flavors and spice
Cinnamon, cloves and safron rice.
Tiny islands, dots, dots, all across the
Waters.
Throw the flesh to the fires
Harvest time.
The big music now
Big music
Gigantic beats.
Drifting, drifting, drifting.
Angels are the demons
And the demons are all
Friends.
Muscles tied together
Tendon and bone.
Held together ‘til the
End.
All along the waters,
Among the waters.

Judges

On the muddy banks of the Jordan
Stands the keeper of the bees,
Tiny frame
Lithe
Standing straight…
The candle stick maker
The General,
long red hair waving in the yellow orange light of
The breaking dawn.

Blinded and battered
A little child in a huge hulking body
Shoulders bowed
Nothing left
Even part of life long ago shrinking away
Nazirite with wine red lips,
Shaving bumps all along
A bloody scalp
With A Delilah’s eye
Misery is a tactile thing
Running fingers along the textures.

Trumpets, trumpets blow and bellow
The fiends of sky
Masters of air
The slow decaying victims of history
Watching each and every sound…
The falling down bits
The brick exploding
Armies of men making themselves saints
Of their time
Terrible time
Terrible time stealing away
The better parts of
A far too far flung
Story.

The Devil Dancer of Kandy

While the things that turn, shift and stutter,
Dance and move, and begin to break down.
While the things that howl
Make their shrieking devil sounds.
While the things that march,
Pull hard on the sides
Of the things that still can dance.
The Duk-Duk Men in Borneo,
Make their movements,
Tell the futures
And whisper sorcerers’ secrets
To the cloudless skies
With stars afloat on
Tongues aflame.
Neti, neti, neti, neti and the forest come alive.
Forests of wire, forest of sand,
The Ashram comes alive
The Asuras make their moves.
Sadhus and Fakirs
Imams and Dervish
spin and whirl
And a sacrifice is made at a spirit-pole
In Mandalay
The screams get carried on the breeze and the muffled moans of the woman of
Colombo
Fade fade fade away.
The colors that hold the hands together,
The colors they are blinding.
The steps that hold up the thin parts of reality,
The movements remain
Binding