His Master's Voice

Outside it heralds April

the secret grill of agency

the back patio of St Antonio

lost legacies of absent fathers

mesquite thorn coal fire 

glowing in the west

right back there at Inwood

St Augustine dreams

right back there in the woods

down by the creek

turning over wet stone

searching for god's sign

what was once written
underneath

alphabets of mosses

her bright fallen hair

hieroglyphic minnows 

silver slivers shining starlight

and he is there

right where he always was

waiting for me to find him

not trying to hide

that face at the limit
of the fire's light

skull like shadows

watching over me

dark guardian

minnow flash of this
in my memory

all brought on by
the burning mesquite

We stay there in the kitchen

windows open
sprung evening air

half drunk 

sitting on the counters
under stove light

listening to Joe Nick's records

on the portable player
some R&B collection

and Barbara Lewis

this perfect voice

parting the melancholy curtain of

shoo-bop

shoo-bop

my baby

Hello Stranger

it seems so good to see you back again

a distant voice calling me back

to Inwood

to Gunstream

to an ancient face

from the fire

I know I've heard the song before

perhaps the first time with my mother

watching her listen

and seeing her gaze turn inwards

sinking into sorrow

of a lost husband

It seems like a mighty long time

mighty long time

and those shoo-bops

like crickets in the night

under a honeyed moon 

on a beach

in Galveston

But I've never listened to the song before

here in San Antonio

sunk under weighted waves

rising out of distant
long passed disasters
those selfsame waves
in sequent toil
once erasing the shore
now carving into it

listening to this surf's song alone

sung words spinning

I am right back there 

and he is right back here

never having gone

a pattern unmoving but alive

so still it seemed part of the water

so quiet it seemed part of the silence

And Barbara Lewis 

sings his words

to me
he is speaking
to me
through music
under this pressure
of the present presence 

memory breaks

down into

shoo-bop

shoo-bop
my baby
mantra prayer invocation

incarnating
what seemed a ghost
what seemed lost memory

I know he never left
I know he never died

I know now it was me
always me

I was the one
who unremembered
buried the unconcealing
under covering

I am
my absent father

my lost son
my dead friend

my dream forgot
my love left alone

and I am listening
to this song
this fragile net of notes
words written on the water

over and over

I am
the drowning man
descending
forgetting
overburdened
with the weight
of my own deceiving

I am
letting go
opening the hand
that instinctually held on
letting go the coward's knife
easiest thing in the world

eyes cut opening like stars

because I can again hear

being sung by Barbara Lewis

bell clear being
ringing through
the pasteboard mask
of this world
seeing
his hand on the rope
hearing
the bell resounding
membrane through marrow
engraving
and I am dawned upon
believing

As you know
you know
you remember
that dog's doggy brain burning
transfixed
with an incomprehensible
yearning
waging tail
wagging wagging
before the Victrola's trumpet
on the player's table turning
forever listening
as his master's voice
is being
unsealing

Shoo-bop shoo-bop
my baby
shoo-bop shoo-bop
my baby
it seems like a mighty long time

***

Hello, stranger
(ooh) It seems so good to see you back again
How long has it been?
(ooh, seems like a mighty long time)
(shoo-bop, shoo-bop, my baby, ooh)
It seems like a mighty long time

Oh-uh-oh, I my, my, my, my
I'm so glad
You stopped by to say "hello" to me
Remember that's the way it used to be
Ooh, it seems like a mighty long time
(shoo-bop, shoo-bop, my baby, ooh)

Oh-uh-oh
I'm so glad you're here again

Oh-uh-oh
Shoo-bop, shoo-bop, my baby
Shoo-bop, shoo-bop, my baby

Oh-ahh-uh-oh
If you're not gonna stay
(ooh) Please don't treat me like you did before
Because I still love you so a-a-although
It seems like a mighty long time

Shoo-bop, shoo-bop, my baby, ooh
It seems like a mighty long time
Oh-uh-oh, I my, my, my, my
I'm so happy that you're here again
(shoo-bop, shoo-bop, my baby)

Wikipedia:

Hello Stranger" was written by Barbara Lewis herself, who was originally inspired to write a song with that title while working gigs in Detroit with her musician father: “I would make the circuit with my dad and people would yell out: ‘Hey stranger, hello stranger, it’s been a long time’". The song is notable because its title comprises the first two words of the lyrics but is never at any point repeated throughout the rest of the song. 

Lewis recorded "Hello Stranger" at Chess Studios in Chicago in January 1963. The track's producer Ollie McLaughlin recruited the Dells to provide the background vocals. The arrangement by Riley Hampton - then working with Etta James - featured a signature organ riff provided by keyboardist John Young. The track was completed after thirteen takes. Lewis would recall that, on hearing the playback of the finished track, Dells member Chuck Barksdale "kept jumping up and down and saying, ‘It’s a hit, it’s a hit.’...I didn’t really know. It was all new to me.” 

McLaughlin flew to New York City to pitch "Hello Stranger" to Atlantic Records, who had picked up Lewis' previous two singles for national release. Atlantic optioned "Hello Stranger" but then had second thoughts on the viability of releasing such an unusual track. The ascendancy of "Our Day Will Come" by Ruby & the Romantics to the top of the Pop and R&B charts in March 1963 motivated Atlantic to release "Hello Stranger" that month;[2] entering the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1963, the track took another month to reach the Top 40. Impelled by its #1 status in St. Louis, MO, it entered the Billboard Top Ten that June for a five-week stay.

And I don't give a fuck

Anatomies of sorrow.
Were there only ten reasons?
Otis Redding.
Sam Cooke.
Marvin Gaye.
Tom Waits.
Trying to find another...

Down to the Faust Tavern.
Maker's Mark on ice,
Shot of well tequila,
No salt,
No lime,
Hi Life back.
Sit at a table.

In April...
I don't know where the fuck
I will be in April.
So then I should just...
Whatever you want...
I can't think about anything
Beyond this weekend.
That's all good
I'm working to live my life
Two weeks at a time.
I'm done after I finish this Maker's.
I'm gonna have another shot.
See you back at the house.
See you.
You want anything?
No,
Just finish that fast.
You can go on...
So you're just gonna stay here
And drink?
I reckon.

There's the thunder
Of Death Metal.
Some leathered fuck
Behind me
With a nervous knee
Shaking the floor boards
Out of time.

You walking me back home?
I'm walking back.
Coming back to the bar?
I reckon not.
You reckon?
I reckon.

You know Oscar Wilde...
I can hear you sigh.
He said,
There are two tragedies in life:
Never getting
What you desire;
And the worse,
Getting
What you desire.
When you talk like that
It exhausts my brain.
I'm just trying to say
I love you.
Well it's tiring.
And I don't want to have
To try and figure out
Something like that now.

You know,
I see all these couples
In the grocery store
Walking around
And I think:
Jesus,
What chumps.
Why would you stay
With a woman man person
Like that?
And then you come along
Complaining about
The Bordeaux selection
At this yuppie fuckhole,
Or the price of havarti,
Asking why I picked up
The wrong green salsa
And I don't feel like a chump.
And that's when I know
I still love you.

Because I don't make you feel
Like a chump?

Because you do
And I don't
Give a fuck.

The only thing interesting about her was her skull.

source

Living under the constant pressure of death.

The tragedy of youth is to believe you are going to live forever
while that of old age is knowing you have run out of time.
And what time remains is saturated with a core-tiredness.
The energies contained within hope have been long depleted.

Words like empty shells,
no longer full of life,
quiet echoes of what they once were.

God,
I am sick to death
of all these dead metaphors.
The sea shell is traded
for the dried carapace of the cicada,
clinging with a dead mother's grip
to the bark of the pecan tree,
this sepia skinned remnant
smelling like insect death
Van Gogh's boots
her jacket on the hook
that still holds the shape
and perfume of her days.

What is there left to do that hasn't been done already?

The bored artist idly carves
into the face of his muse,
desecrating her beauty,
heedless of her pain,
watching the blood fill
and fall from the wounds.

Is this it?

He reloads his brush with her blood,
spreading the skin apart to dig deep,
has no idea what he might paint,
somehow the dripping brush
seems too much

The only thing interesting about her
was her skull.

Ancient Lullabye

White Woman, James Whistler
source

The rats come out of the walls at night
As bones crack in the leaves
Balancing upon the edge of sleep
Teeth gnawing at my memories

My mother dances with a door
Pirouettes a rug around the room
I say I've never heard her laugh that way
As her face unsolves in the moon

An old man trembles in the barber's chair
His face wrecked with new grief
As the razor erases all his tears
I watch minnows clean his teeth

Whiskers brush against my eyes
The globe shatters beside my bed
A woman whistles ancient lullabyes
About the memories of the dead

After a Sickness

source

I am better.
But not the same.
Diminished
From what I was before.
Perhaps this is old age.

A thousand Lilliputians,
Have secured their ropes around me,
Drawn down the flesh of my face.
Dug trenches around
The ghost of my exhausted smile.

The quicksand drag of the grave
Unties my shoelaces.
Having stumbled a few steps in,
A gravity guides my feet,
Tucked tightly in the winding sheet.

Maybe there's no more easy days,
Hope close at hand,
Now all gone beyond the pale,
What's left is the futile fight,
The dull ache of awakening.

Maybe that last glass of wine
Still full
On the nightstand the next morning
Will keep mocking my ambitions
From the night before.

Thoughts recycle this pained drama.
It's strange to feel you'll never be
Quite who you were before,
To see a stranger in the mirror
Mindlessly brushing your teeth.

As a wounded dying animal
Looks out at you accusingly,
Sinking further deep down
Into the depths
Of your eyeholes.

I imagine there's strength
In seeing your blood
Still warm in your children.
But I wouldn't burden another creature
To wear this guilty mask.

I didn't believe my mother and father
Would hang on as long as they did.
Up every morning with a sigh,
Somehow remain alive,
Asleep leaving on the light.

It happens all over again again.
It's difficult to think of doing anything else
When living is all you've known.
No one teaches us how to die.
To stop doing what we've always done.

Everyone mills around the station,
Mumbling around in a ring,
Collapsed overcoats sitting upon the benches,
Suitcases spilling threadbare undergarments
And long sleeved dress shirts.

All uncertain of their ticket status,
Compulsively wandering
Through empty pockets,
Occasionally wondering
How they ended up here.

Wasn't there something else we were once doing,
More important than this tired waiting?

Sena Jeter Naslund Entertaining the Ghost of Madison Cawein

Madison Cawein (1865-1914)

Say what you will,
the notes are all here.
Diapason. Cricket's cry,
locust's whirr
and the trailing dress
ringing liminal realms.
The pulse of savage ground.

Now see The Poetess,
composed in a dark
closet of St. James court
with a bottle of wine,
conversing casually
with the Shade
of a Forgotten Poet ,
himself standing
cooling in a pool
a fresh blood spilled
from dog squirrel
cat bird
snake.

Care not for the cries
of quiet creatures
unseamed under the sygil
of the dead leaves.

All Words become ash,
bitter on our tongues.

Under the hill,
the cross,
Adam's skull forgotten
in the Serpent's cave,
the Delphyne Python
licks herself back to life
red tears dripping
down white lightning
roots.

Awaiting Typhon.

The Fall of Man begins
Him back again.

After Byzantium

Hugo, Oklahoma

August 29, 2015

The heart, once consumed with desire
is thankfully wasting away.
The dying animal is reconciled
to the leash of the eternal thing.

I still search for that golden bough.
I still search for a place to sing.
In a desolate and abandoned Byzantium,
soon, soon, I hear it whispering.

The mind, full of holy fire
is emptied into eternity.
And my memories, like birds on a wire
Have all flown away from me.

I still search for that golden bough.
I still search for a place to sing.
In a desolate and abandoned Byzantium,
soon, soon, I hear it whispering.

And you, in your tattered dress
no longer long to dance with me.
An old man's sad happiness
depends upon such paltry things.

I still search for that golden bough.
I still search for a place to sing.
In a desolate and abandoned Byzantium,
soon, soon, I hear it whispering.

Waiting for the Ghost

Drawing by Shelton Walsmith

It was on the circus train
Rolling across Kansas
I saw the clowns dancing
With old women in the aisles
And I said, I keep forgetting
And you said, it doesn't matter
I watched the rolling fields go by,
As I was waiting for the ghost
Who had lost himself inside me.

We crossed over to Juarez

we crossed over to Juarez
at Paseo del Norte
Jones moving slow
in a heavy rain
that tasted like sweat

side streets
were already flooding
sewage water
smell of shit and gasoline
Federales sitting motionless
on two tanks
oblivious to the rain
not even turning
to watch Jones and I
pass by

prostitutes huddled
under awnings
and in doorways
the stench
unwashed sex
semen and bad pussy perfume
hovered around them
like a foul clouds
they look me
up and down
then see Jones
and leave us be

we walk towards
the cathedral
closed and dark

Death Waits

Shining Death's claws

with our suffering

well
not so much suffering

more of a transfixed trembling

as we shiver in Death's embrace

You see
he was walking along

this evening path

sky darkening

his thoughts surrendering

under the weight of an unnameable despair

And there

at the moment he thought 

he'd prefer not to go on

But then
he thinks

I'll go on

Then, no
I can't go on
Yes
I guess
I'll just go on

And asking himself, 

how do YOU really feel about it all?

as if he were a stranger on a train

suddenly in the crosshairs 

of an idiot's attention

this idiot not sitting across from him

in the compartment

but uncomfortably sitting
inside of him

I don't have any opinion
about how I FEEL

one way or the other
he replies

I simply endure
Do my time
Keep my head down

He goes on

It's like I was born chained to a dead tree

in the middle of a Waste Land

Over the years

the Birds of Appetite

have gathered in bare branches above
rustle of black wing
I have endured under
the patient gaze of their hunger

always feeling just barely alive

longing for the world

beyond the limits of my chain

But I'm resigned 

resigned without resentment

to continue to endure

knowing one thing

to look just enough alive 

to keep the Birds at bay

occasionally twitch the exhausted hand

now and then open the tired eye

keep the black wings from whispering

After having heard this monologue

The Idiot asks:

Why don't you ask Death in?

Stand upon the threshold

where pain turns to stone

and kindly offer entrance?

As he think about this

it is as if a coat slides off a hanger
skin slips from bones

And Death is there before him

Implacable

A statue sculpted from Nothingness

Brutal as a mountain 

slamming suddenly down
upon the world

His terminal fear gives Death 

claws that pierce his flesh 

crucifying him upon his bones

And so here I am now
he thinks
with this Idiot Inner Self 

who somehow convinced me to 

Ask Death in

And here Death is

And while I'm not dead

I certainly wish I could just go back 

back to the good times

when it was just me 

the tree and the chain

branches full of birds 

waiting to devour me

But Death waits
and waits and waits

he amuses himself
on the cross of his bones

it's like one of those moments

in a conversation at dinner

when someone

is talking 

and then

at the critical moment of 

saying
what you can never forget...

they take a bite of food

watching while you hang

on the hook

waiting for them to finish 

that damned sentence

Death waits like this

infecting every present moment 

And the Idiot continues his questions:

Aren't you sick of this sack of skin?

Of having to zip up the weary body over the skeleton every morning?

Of slipping the same old face over your skull?

Of going through the day exposing your broken teeth
in the tortured rictus of a smile?

Of just going through the same tired routine

Saying the same tired phrases, jokes, prayers,
poems

And thinking the same tired thoughts

THESE SAME TIRED THOUGHTS

This Idiot Inner Self
cross examines like a

Grand Inquisitor:

Is it true or is it not true

that you want to step out of your skin

that you long to be a skeleton 

in a Bone filled World

your skull singing with the wind

white bones clacking cracking

burning with the blue light of the stars

dancing in the Burning Ring of Time

hourglass drum flame river flowing

following the trail of enormous bones

that mark the Path of the Fugitive Gods

Marking the Way Out of this World?

And for the first time
since he has been thinking
these same tired thoughts

he looks into the eyes of his Inquisitor

Of course,
he knows I know he knows

he has been my accomplice all along

and like a guilty thing

I nod

And Life begins again

and Death waits
and waits and waits