It’s not only devotees who follow us here
it’s the unmistaken and the fog of war
i’ll not have deserters or the main coursers either
but if you’d rather begin at the starlings
or a drift catching your ear suggesting something else
it’s something to look away from
People want to know where they come in
i’ll leave it to my survivors to sort it out
while downriver from the logjam
instinct has footed me flat undrowned again
wistfully
Mouthed sotto voce
here are the caretakers
as the shoes ca-shuffle and the folding chairs squeak
what care has been taken?
and the orchestra is nearly square and steady
this holiday’s concert to begin
Here near the back of the orchestra or maybe just before
in between something happening better
i’ve been working on a piece called ‘to oblivion
and/or something just before!’
because, really, i’m happy with either/or a new year
As to tonight’s performance…
sometimes i’ll miss notes purposely
indulge self righteous sleeves
salmon wait to be sprung
whole heartedly
not to say i’m not coming to dinner
dressed as the vegan who eats fish
or any other
tonight i might really mess things up
my town is on edge
Our first number is not particularly holidayish as we ease
in with our
coolest breeze
resembling strongly
ne me quitte pas or if you go away
having provided our bona fides, say,
things should go well
because eh they usually go well enough
Buuuuuuuuut i’m not iiin tuune
i’m ready to shoot up this rooom with my horn in disobeisance
People want to pray but
i… can shoot myself / and splatter mo-o-lecuuules Intoo a dazzling.. display
sprayed upon your wall aand.. dripping uuuselessly / except
Memory.. Might confuuse itself with / somethingthatremai-ains
i…
Don’t..
know..
Why!
i Don’t Seemyself.. haanging in stat-isti-cali-ties
i want to squirt exquisite head rolls from the guillotine
you shall swaddle it / in high cloth
Maybe people are looking at me maybe they’re not
i sometimes empty my spit valve and think you
only throw glances, hardly insights,
maybe co-lights or might have beens
and i smell blood and have to blow through it
gurgling
synaptically in 3/4 time
Consider that when you go home tonight
The polite applause
as we swing into our holiday fare
joshua should be proud of my subtle point
with my tongue on a swivel
undistracted, dear,
though zombies wield hammers against a barely dented chrome bumper
-picture a 1952 Hudson if you can, a green one
tossing snow like a plow being home for christmas
with an open hearth fire burning our shadows into stone walls
let’s not undersell our christmases
they light up these dark skies
who among us wouldn’t rather reach for a star than be singed by a memory?
a star you can grab for forgiveness
Where do you go in your skin?
if i could only just type it in
i wouldn’t finger so on these valves
-my aroused knuckles pound in the muddle of the orchestra
where the many backing arrangements are dying to be heard
hammering against a shiny chrome bumper cosmetically dented
cherry with seasoning
pristine
stone
skies
and home for christmas if only in my flats
HowlavaMaria
much to do with chants and itinerant fingers or
no particular allegiance to tying it all up in the end
oh come on all ye menter’s approval to your nod as
i warble through a drunken carol
it feels as though we’ll have an unbowed christmas
this year
at least things are merely discordant
a vague siren
if i can sink into stasis i’ll have done my fingers bidding
-many formal layings of tempo-
don’t know what possesses my shoulders to stiffen so
like a weakness needing to be forgiven
blowing around us all who didn’t get dead
Hey this stiffens us all, i can blow
She once sat right over there
the second row one from the end, empty
i don’t do anything this song
except finger my lap trumpet
there the audience sits, the few who decided to still attend,
except for one tense moment when a door slammed
appear to be finding some solace
I hold you in dear memory
also deer in headlights
on ice
splayed on a roadway
where brakes are useless
And next we feature me or my trumpet is
after the sleighing the licking and the tingling bell
this exploding cigar of a horn gets to light up
like judy garland with have yourself a merry little christmas
it was either this or the roasting chestnuts won
and i couldn’t allow that to happen
these are merely notes i might have discarded
but i urgently fingerblow them now
i’m imagining the slaughter these could wreak
while still managing to swing
don’t dare burst through that door armed to the hilt
and spray us with your flying bullets
why do you all look at me so?
these notes bouncing off the ceiling
no one is bleeding
plug your ears
Pretty sure this is what she and they would have wanted
she suggested that with her rowdy eyes
-i hope you don’t assail me for playing in righteous dissonance
or stumbling in unfettered instrumental agonistes
surrounded by sleigh bell notes
C’est la guerre
… if the corn is still poppin let me know let me know let me know. look. just sit there and look into the light. it wavers before you quicker than eye
