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Mohave

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somapoetics 1

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On the rim of the black
hole, nowhere
known, the woman by
or from my side re-
minds me how long we’ve been out here
looking for the object of our in-
definite need, when
out of the blue — the color hovering
over the hidden fires of
volcanic forges—a voice “arises”—
as the sun and moon are said
to do in their gradual and spectral crossing
over our heads—saying:

Hold your hand up to the light-
bulb while retaining
your seminal thoughts: trans-
luminous relations
or the supersensual glance
at the flesh shows
the color of your kin-
ship, climb aboard when ready to
body forth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Now I AM
an honest man
whose habit is careful observation
but we have been indeterminately about this
walkway thru green woods or
waterway thru words like Sea
of.  .  .  .—

~~~~~~~~~~~It appears that names
are what we are waiting for, or a species of
“lognosis” has been promised us, but is it TRUE,
as it is said, Whatever led to this
is part of it, and, if not, then whose trans-
mission is this
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~gapped sentence
and furthermore who handed me this rootless
changebearing soi-disant Instrument
of Esemplastic Mushrooming?

A silence encircles me like the Mohave.

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somapoetics 2

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When Venus romps with the Scorpion and
Luna tips the Scales,
the sophianic ghost of Ibn ‘Arabi
sings to America’s heartland:

APPLE-EATING IN HYPERSPACE

Take this green flesh, its
red veins and white interior into
your stoma: Keep Her there, She
who delights to remain, Kin, a
Woman who happens to mother
you—for no reason but the present one,
known, poetically, as APPLE and SEED,
Half-green, half-red in the outer view,
half-sweet, cool at first, then hot and bodily
in your mother-tasting mouth:    the
mantram is the shape She gives the tongue and
Now you are ready
to know the secret of the
Oedipus myth:   viz.,
She lets you in Her when
you come disguised as Man, King, willing
to be a Killer of Kings, self-
mutilating and fish-eating iconoclastic enemy
of the Taboo Against Knowing
the Art of Gnawing the Pomegranate.
The principle is simple:
Ride slowly the fleshy vehicle of names
thru all quarters of our kind nation.
At the core of town, accept
one residual glow at a time.

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somapoetics 3

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By the shores of Lake Leelanau,
by the rushing waters
of the brain
of Lake Michigan, north
of Grand Traverse Bay,
under the geophallic pull
of the Upper Peninsula,
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Superiority
as the body aquatic
bounded by female nodes,
the angelic and nucleic torque of
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Copper Harbor,
waves sucking the edge of land.

The place was our limit, or we knew
by staring into the deathly vaginal pool
the meaning of that call to dive, naked, all the way
in those icy waters. And we did it, and heard there
the voice of Mullah Nasruddin:

A nail is like a requiem

he said, and a man much of his bearing
trespassed our dreams to say, the accent clearly Mohave:
“I have built my house with requiems,” where-
upon he danced in a manner midway between
Konya dervish and delphine leaping, his
four arms of Shiva the mudra of four
in our genes, and his moving discursion
went this way:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~“Death is like a two-by-four,
it hides us in the missing three of tree-stumps.”

And hearing this I scratched my skull,
quickly beat my Buck knife into a plowshare
and ran it over the seductive bones
of recent dead folk, those who dwell
in the dark of our pity.

“A neat trick, that, for dealing with brittle histories
that cling to our lives like the voices in
Mozart’s Requiem Mass, telling us
Christ is the ultimate authority on nails,
those three iron jewels in the crown of Ogun, martial
god of Yorubaland.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~The latter we trust as the power
to obtain our neighbor’s cow; the former,
as we are learning to trust
the burnt boards of a heretical church
to teach us the meaning of politics,
or the serpentine mound of Loudon, Ohio
to teach us the lessons of history
and self-preservation,
or the printed stones of David’s sling
to teach us the use of phrenology,
or the narcoleptic desecration of
rice fields and foreign bones to
warn us of the triad of power
in the pen, the penis and the pistol.
And this we will know when we know
that ink is seed
and seed is fire
and fire is
wine for the Last Supper
such as Mozart drank during composition
of his Requiem Mass,
incomplete
but in his knowledge of
forthcoming death.”

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somapoetics 4

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I’m a stranger here myself.
Hence the alternating willingness and reluctance to
follow these voices large and small, but can these gods be
more than these functions? Silence
to my questions. I imagine a Bard or
he imagines me to say:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Circumambulate
as you listen, and execute your drawing as a cross
between an open geographical mouth
and a nine-pointed circle of black stone. Got it?

“Yes and no,” I said, but the Recital rushed on,
harmonious surfic clash and a
weird kind of timing, the
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~importance of knowing
the right moment means I
might be your Master, or maybe you’re
mine, and I’m the Guide
through the hell of your making—
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Clear
as Negative Space, I thought—where
you will notice the inward dwelling of Seven
Masters of the Mohave, and their Masterful Women makes
Fourteen to reckon with—
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~say, that’s the date
of my birth, 7th month, 14th day, it’s gotta be
mine to hear through, you are its
to hear WITH, con-
spiracy of our mutual breathing to voice the fires of con-
fusion: I said circumambulate
as you listen, why do you stop to war
with our ways? the Black Space opens
to the Will to Open
together your female waxing ears and the
Purple Jesus of your wining lips to
break into fleshy song O ELIJAH! O KHIDR! where-
upon you may find yourself transported into wandering
from, say, Andalusia to the Middle Orient, carrying
back your Keatsian allegory or forward your fire-
side reverie, wearing your flash-
light in your mouth
of magenta:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SOMAPHANY

~~~~~~~The morning-red shape on the nightshade

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somapoetics 5

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“A man of immense desire
visited us here in the Center of Heat
and solemnly requested use of the Mohave Vine,
Active Genius of this place.
Our Seven Voices told him of its power
to obtain all things possible to be believed
and to perpetuate endlessly the reality it serves.
And we emphasized reality as meaning
what a man makes it
and what in turn
makes a man the particular
tub of water he or she is, twisted
in whatever fig leaf floating on top
in full view of the horny gods.
Thus a caveat was in order:

AS YOU USE THE VINE, SO WILL IT
USE YOU.

Read it up or down
it’s you reading it.
Furthermore, all tongues operate in this way
including of course that of Earth
whose saliva is liquid fire,
moisture for Her Potters—they
whose brains are kilns
and whose hearts are vats of glaze.
And lest the Figure of our warning go unheard
we add: It will hang
you by your own desire
if yours is weak enough
to breed pestilence:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~IT
will be satisfied, if not by the
everready cock of Earth Herself
then it will eat your sex away.

But our visitor would not be frightened by
threatening wisdom-as-such. So goes it.

‘I’ll USE the Vine,’ he blurted to the American sun.
And so we granted him his handful of torque.
Whereupon he began in earnest to spin his web of desires:
‘A case of Chateau Lafitte-Rothschild 1959.
A carton of Camels and a butane lighter.
Head Chef from Le Procôpe, an order of cervelles en matelote,
and a castle in walking distance of Mont Ségur.
In the dining room: a Tintoretto Last Supper; in the main
bedroom, left of 14’ X 34′ bed, Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding.
One albino falcon, four chirring Maui crested honeycreepers,
songs of the Humpback Whales, the enchanting “My Lady Cary’s
Dompe,” the latter to be played nightly on a Henry VIII spinet.
And most pressing: evolved specimens of the following yoginis
skilled in Tantric sex magic: Kamchadal, Provencal, Balinese,
Chilean, and Columbus (Ohio). We pause.’
Request was granted in four minutes and ten seconds. AND
the man leapt like a dolphin at his many treasures
somewhat in the manner of a faulty metaphor.
Alas, hardly had he carried this elegance beyond
one glass of Lafitte and the warm breath of the Cathars
when in the distance a VINE was heard, nutating
anxiously about its triple staff, generating

GREATER NEED

And it made the very ground to quake
under the man, and left him limp with fear and trembling.
No doubt you have guessed the follow-up:
He turned tail and fled back to us
and wept and slobbered and begged us to release him.
Most unpleasant to see the manchild thus to despair BUT
we refused.
Instead we instructed him as follows:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Direct the Vine
to pursue that dog over yonder.
And see that tail? Direct the Vine
to straighten it and KEEP it straight.

So did he. And the dumb and directionless vine
slunk its sleek and omniumgathering belly across our
granulated land, and gripped the curl
like a guilty serpent’s tongue, and straightened it.
The job done, it naturally returned to its own circum-
volution about its axis, of necessity but unwittingly re-
leasing the dogtail, which in turn recoiled, obliging said
Vine again, etc., which organism found itself occupied
in a system of changeless change.

Our Hero was SO relieved
by his new freedom, he barely heard our parting remark:

The mind is like that dog’s tail.”

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somapoetics 6

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That red-headed
Balinese yogini who
slips away with
the morning in her hair
cries out to her suitors, the poets
and critics—as if to test
mastery itself—
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~and paraphrases her
Odyssean hero:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~“In my bedroom,
no one allowed who doesn’t know we read
for power,

the book
a ball of light
pausing in our hands.

Consider the Chinese
who like very much to state their ideas in couplets:

All streams flow, the mountains are not moving.
White clouds move on, but the blue mountains move not.

Now, who among your mental jocks can follow
the quick white words
leaping from the great blue tongue
clear through
apparent death in the lost third ear?
You think I but sport with you, Balinese style, no?
Well, my lovers, I offer you unlimited excursion in my
white desires—Join me behind the
~~~~~blue door
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~—Look, even now I open
the Cruel Theater of my Oriental thighs!
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you wondering
if that infamous door exists? Allow me a couplet:

Absolute presence of mind in a tough situation:
The blueness of the door.”

She lost us, or we barely noticed how
she disappeared like sulphurous
sheen
~~~~~~~participating
our dark
glasses.

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somapoetics 7

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Dawn notches the horizon
or the bloody finger points out
its Goethean Theory of Color: The trans-
lucent eyes of our barely revealed Cathar beauty
astray on the surgical sands of Mohave.
This much I claim to understand of her:
that she has walked the living roads from Mont Ségur,
that her voice is as a veil that closes on what it finds,
that she “knows” Arnaut, the Nile, and “where the sun
rains”: Tro lai on lo soleills plovil—

My eyes snag on her physiological rose, the quick trans-
mission, a newscast of:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~DIANA

Marsmaid a-
Stride Her leaping dolphin
Dreams of light, mountains, forests ~`For no reason
But that it pleases Her
The ancient animations~~“`~~~~“`~~~~The central “purpura”
Of hemorrhaging Earth         ~~~~~~~~`Are points
Of culmination and~~~~~~`~~~~~~`~““~These simple actions
Of sun-light““““`~~~~“~~“`~~~~~~~~~~~Entering
Her wine-stained veil
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~“`~~Such are the colorful facts
Or the facts of color““““~~~~~~~~“`~~~`Such is physical history:

The interior nature of a clay vessel filled to the lip with
Anterior flow of menstrual time
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`~Diana is woman knowing
You in the manner of your knowing ~~~~~~`Trajection
Loinclothed catalogue of ~~~~~~~~~~~~~“`Fleshly mantra
Target of lengthening tongues

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~In the Telling of Her Temple at Lake Nemi
Initiates milk a secret incarnadine fungus
And from “The Churning of the Sea” ~~~~~~~AMRITA
And in Her Bear-hands the terra cotta flagon
And She thrice-brained in the seventh of the thirteen months
And calls the lusting Dove into Her Oak
And Heavens spin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~On Mount Mandara

~~~~~~~~“Good Lady,” sings Peire Vidal,
~~~~~~“I think I see God when I
~~~~Gaze on your body!”

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somapoetics 8

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Turreted shell, long-spired gastropod,
Imaginacrux of Mont St. Michel,
The timely twining up thru our City
Linking the lower female mouth
And our risen manly lognostic flair. . .

So it seems to us, as we sit here gazing at
this found object, cast into the garbage by
Nizam, the housemaid whose petulance expresses itself as
the gaudy scientia of conchology and theodendrology:

~~~~~~~~~~~~her Writ
of habeas corpus cum causa claiming the aforementioned belly-
footed creature, that proud slug,
cowry, limpet, or any ventral muscular mass
serving as organ
of locomotion—crazy music
that leads us like Ewig-Weibliche.
The fair princess has this to say on behalf of shell-life:

“From Primal Stupidity we arose
—i.e., out of the morass of presomatics—
first through the use of certain beastly devices
and later through the transposition of these into somatogrammic
crossword puzzles, containing that lovely sufism [horizontally] :

Every stick always has two ends!

And running downward that equally charming virtual focus:

The level ~~~[crossing through Every]
of being ~~~ [through stick]
attracts ~~~[through always has]
the ~~~[through two]
life ~~~[through ends] .

In one exegesis, you may be interested to know,
the reader, or puzzle addict, is himself
the one walking thru the woods, and
characteristically checking his heels for dog shit
he suddenly finds his hand is being held
by an irregular stick. Or let us say
he has been handed an obligation
by no means unspeakable.”

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somapoetics 9

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“Assume that we belong to an ancient family that was entrusted with a Secret sometime in the 16th century. The Secret has no name but has been called, by certain relations, Vril or the Odic Force or Eos-Estella, although even the most stupid cousins know that the name is a fiction. And these individuals are also party to the knowledge that the Secret presents itself as a ‘quality of light’ at the point of becoming sound under water. Those who have heard the radial songs of whales have been known to ask in private whether there are not some whales in our family. No one knows the answer, for the only authentic remaining document bears the brief inscription:

TELL A TALE THAT KNOWS
IT IS A TALE THAT KNOWS

This is strange business. No one is certain who anyone else is. We sit around telling learned tales but no one knows for sure whether he has met the stated requirement, although it sounds simple enough. Sometimes we debate whether this or that story actually contains the Secret, but we always end with a 4 to 3 difference of opinion in a situation where majority rules proves nothing. Yet we do know this much: That as members of this body politic we are permitted to function in any organic manner, such as gazing with erotic pleasure at a brother’s wife or else thinking aloud in skeptical delight: What does the mind show itself when it shows itself the family Secret? For most of us do admit that the mere asking of this charged question produces in us, if not direct knowledge of the Secret itself, at least a sort of family feeling. A heartfelt pang, if not full-fledged cardiognosis. A kind of debt, admittedly vague, even remote, but a debt nevertheless, as when one borrows garlic from a neighbor, and forgets to return it, one carries around a garlic half-memory. One has garlic nightmares, and so forth. It is almost as though one had promised and been promised, source unknown, what cannot be articulated, except perhaps as:

A Star is the subject of this song, such as Solomon sang in the Shiar Ha- Shiareem—

Your lips alembicate Amrita
Your cheeks halve Pomegranates
Your hair gathers the goats… etc.

—indicatively present land subjunctively known, were it ever anywhere other before now, Lightyears away. . . .

We identify it only as what cannot but be happening, since we know it in our family, and it is written in our album, and dated. The Autumnal Equinox approaches in this the Year of the Rat. It seems the Making Noose is around our neck, its self-crossed knot a path that numbers our days, as though backwards, and along the Tail of Ceres, wagging between Mars and Saturn, 1801, be it to distract the 3 heads of Cerberus, that we enter here in search of counsel, or a quiet place in the Andes.”

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somapoetics 10

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The Marriage

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