1. |
Arrival
03:41
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Arrival
Like words or language
With no means to contain it all in structure
Flowing with oceans of sentience
My mind was swollen with images, a river
Returned beside me – showing more love than I'd known
Arrayed in the colors of dawn, and my guide
As I stood up, the fire was above me
Brought me down to the ground without levity
Of motion through atmospheres of fire
When implosion and the gravity
The scars of one-third of understanding self
Being burned to manifest
I believed I was in the belly of hell
As if the fire resisted my progress
I knew I was being held as I fell
I knew I was being held as I fell
As if the fire resisted my progress.
I believed I was in the belly of hell
Being burned to manifest
The scars of one-third of understanding self –
When implosion and the gravity
Of motion through atmospheres of fire
Brought me down to the ground without levity
As I stood up, the fire was above me
Arrayed in the colors of dawn, and my guide
Returned beside me – showing more love than I'd known
My mind was swollen with images, a river
Flowing with oceans of sentience
With no means to contain it all in structure
Like words or language
I was at Ft. Phoenix
At the north end of the harbor, New Bedford
Lay dimly against the crepuscular night sky
Was it just going to start again, the grunge
And vomit?
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2. |
Ft. Phoenix
03:57
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Ft. Phoenix
I scuffed my feet on the sand and
The man sitting guard looked up
Sparks flashing from the brow of his eye
“How the hell did you get here?!”
My Uncle spoke up
“Scribe, pay us the compliment of your grace
Where we are obviously at your mercy.”
The angry guard looked to me, “Is he?”
And I nodded. He looked me up and down,
“Who is this sorrowful tramp?
Did he wash up on the tide, having been cast adrift?
I have seen the look of me who have battled
The clenching jaws of death, suspended amidst
The briny, deflecting the sheer teeth of blood-addled
Sharks, with wooden planks for hours, then lifted
Into the hold of a buoyant boat, to regain balance,
To regain their lives, but not again in the same manner
Such is the look of this newly-hatched young man.”
His beard and breath smelled like seaweed and grass
His fingers were raw with some dermatitis
He extended his hand to me, “Welcome
I am Melville. I will be good enough to set thee
On the proper path.”
My Uncle touched my shoulder, “Do not let
Fear blind you to what you have done.”
Melville responded, “I prefer not to.”
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3. |
Stephen Douglas
03:35
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Stephen Douglas
The smell was of wet salt flesh. Jack scrambled up
The mountain of fish.
Hecut a sack of guts, and watched
As a million eggs poured out
The pile began writhing and twisting up to form
A squat man, like Jack, but with a round belly and clear eyes
What had been a gelatinous mass
Was transformed into a master debater:
“Stephen Douglas, at your service, if you so wish…
I see you are again with us, Honest Abe.”
“And where I am, you are not far behind
Perpetuating hatred.”
“The people will always find a way to express their will.”
“There is always someone to pander to them,
But that doesn’t make them right or true.”
“This government requires an interpreter
Of the babel of voices from below.”
“Some, who call themselves heroes,
Shrink into oblivion. Small men who sow doubt,
No matter their millions, end up with zeroes.”
Douglas: “Which is all one needs to enter from without.”
Lincoln assented: “Equality begins at zero.
It is responsibility which adds quantity,
In an accumulation of actions to the good.
Aren't you sorry for continuing to sustain
The moral fissure in our country?”
I asked about Jack, “Why is he here?”
My guide said, “You might find he is spinning wisdom.
At least more than Douglas…"
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4. |
There's No Whiskey
02:59
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There's No Whiskey
“Tlon is not redemption.”
Just then, we were passed by scores men
Who were clearly off the clock and free
To wander the dock in search of refreshment.
Jack said, “Gummawn” and trundled with the sea-battered
Men, cracked skin and hoary beards, as they found
The first shanty bar they could find that to walk in
We gathered with them at the door, grimly disrobing
And putting on hair shirts
Never having worn one before, I hesitated.
My Uncle scowled, “Don’t you see that this will someday be over?”
Don’t you want to feel as much sensation
As you can garner on this journey? Knowledge is power.
Or must you wait for Lilica to see revelation?”
I sighed, put on the barbed cloth, and entered
The quietest bar I’d ever seen. No music,
No billiards, no waitress, no bartender.
A monkey sat at an open window using
A bucket to scoop scummy salt water from under
The dock. Some of the men drank this fluid
Out of angry desperation, but they were not sated.
The hair shirt felt gruesome… seared my skin….
I heard a man shout, “This place was created
For whiskey. But there’s no whiskey for the guests!”
My guide harkened to that tobacco voice.
Jack walked toward the shouting man,
And he was not well-met, for he had no bottle.
The men circled Jack and stamped the floor screaming “Whiskey! Whiskey!”
Jack laughed, my guide moved forward toward them
And I followed him that way.
My Uncle beside me raised up his chin and called out,
“Ulysses.”
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5. |
Whiskey in the Bar
03:44
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Whiskey in the Bar
“We have come from hell, And we have bourbon.”
Jack produced a vial
The thickness of his thumb, which he gave to Grant.
Who uncorked it and took a tentative draft,
“Aaahhh, this helps make one endurant
This shirt is flaying me!” He drank again and laughed,
“Do you know when this campaign ends, Mr. President?”
“Mine ends before yours. Beyond Tlon, none of this lasts.
Yet great things lay in store for those who can envision
And always progress, like a slow-moving arrow
At an ever-present target, in that direction.”
Watching the vial in Grant’s hand, the men’s eyes narrowed
They would sanction murder for a swig of that barley juice, fair-oh!
“May I share this with my men?” “It is only fitting.”
Jack brought forth a dozen vials, twice again
From the pockets of his trouser, a friend
To each sea-ravaged salt, and they gulped it back.
And they could not drain the tiny vials.
The hair shirts disappeared and the seamen broke into song
Taking enormous drafts, my guide resisted their throng
Who wanted to loft him in a chair and call him Messiah
Which my Uncle would not allow for long
But Jack wanted a ride in the chair, and so
The hungry men, drunk instantaneously,
Hoisted him upon their shoulders, and to and fro
Danced about the joyful hall, Jack the ring master.
Lincoln and Grant smiled together
Grant said, “We will remain hungover until your return.
But it is better since you have passed through.
Now we shall suffer our burning less.
Our souls shall be freed of the habits
Which institutions make it their purpose
To encase us within.”
Lincoln said, “Then I provide a service.”
“You are the reason for the vast implication
Of this union upon world history.
I just rode your coattails.”
Lincoln said, “Better you than McClellan.”
The men set down Jack.
And were reluctant to give the bottles back.
Grant said, “Let’s be after new engagements.”
Then Lincoln said: “Even if we are apart, practicing our punishments,
We are on this journey together.”
Grant wiped his nose on his sleeve and said, “I’d be a goner.”
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6. |
Gilded Brass Knuckles
03:35
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Gilded Brass Knuckles
Jack sang, “Michael rowed the boat ashore, alleluia.”
I looked up Union Street, up the hillside,
I saw the quintessential America,
Commerce first and a steep incline
Up, past the churches, into the neighborhoods.
My Uncle interrupted my daydream
Turning into the shop with the sign “Old Hickory’s,"
I thought it had a prickery sound.
My Uncle said, “He who would attain victory
Must endure the torment of the vanquished.
Rawhide has fewer uses than leather.”
My face must have worn my body’s anguish
“How can you fear the weight of a feather
In the face of an eternity of relinquishment?”
"I don’t know what you’re asking me to weather,"
And then Andrew Jackson stepped out of the shadows,
Long-jawed and wild, the gilded brass knuckles
Of the Enlightenment, storming from the South,
“I’m gonna tan your hide, man!”
I looked to my Uncle and asked, “Is it true?”
Jackson roared, “Your Captain can only take you so far,
And then you are on your own. How can you bestride
The hobby-horse of your vocation without
A little wear in the seat?” I said, “No.”
I said, "No." My guide, “Do not be afraid of what you don’t know.
Your body was made to receive and push out.
Physicality is what leads to gnosis.”
Jackson bent me over a counter, wrists tied to a hook
Prone and trembling I said, “Oh, my god.”
He took out a cat-o’nine-tails, saying, “would you cease
To exist for this rape, or will you become
Of greater use to the future of humanity?”
"Of greater use to humanity?!
You speak of humanity to a man
Whose asshole you are about to penetrate
With your syphilitic, pus-caked penis.”
“So, what more needs to be said?”
I said, “Mollusk.”
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7. |
Lilica Appears
03:32
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Lilica Appears
"This cloister of misery, repentance, and peril.”
And Lilica appeared before me, her face
And body swaying with the wooden columns
Beyond the counter where I was placed.
She was not radiant but gray and solemn,
“Oh, my brother. It is not easy to be chaste.
The only purity expected in Tlon
Is that which you have conjured, like an oyster
Takes a grain of sand to create a pearl.
We love you and wish to wipe the moisture
From your eyes. Do not fail to see the world
Of love which awaits you, beyond this cloister
Of misery, repentance, and peril.”
Jackson grunted and shuddered and, tucking
His flaccifying penis under his tunic, spoke,
“Expect it to get worse.”
Who would be content? And where were Jack
And my guide? Why this abandonment?
I pulled up my pants and left without a word
To the smirking Tanner and his manifest destiny.
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8. |
Alone on Union Street
02:40
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Alone on Union Street
I glanced down Union Street and saw the city working
With the purpose of never shirking
In their accumulation of wealth to evidence
Their state of grace and aware of the precedence
Of nothing over themselves. I suspected this balm
For all understanding is self-deceptance
If one propels one’s self forward with calm
Acceptance of the futility of endeavor
There can only be assurance that vanity
Is the virtue of this age, the foundation
Of a moral system based on supremacy of self
Which supply all with equality of rights
If not equality of opportunity
I remembered only that Lilica was there
She was with me, in me
So I would know there is something
Other than me, when I’m taking it in the ass
Alone on Union Street in cobblestone New Bedford
A place to which my fathers had not yet arrived
The only thing I must do is get through this obsession
And I must love Lilica and Lincoln and Jack
She was a shade different
From the black-heart rapist tanner
Another Napoleon, king of New Orleans, backwater
Sutpen writ in granite conquest of the continent
Genocide, segregation, exploitation
Of the lowest classes, the minorities
Who become the scapegoats of the flaws
Of the poor white people who ritualistically
Oppress them by means of institutions
And he is their leader who would rape them
Because they breathe, but she was not the same
Alone on Union Street in cobblestone New Bedford
A place to which my fathers had not yet arrived
The only thing I must do is get through this obsession
And I must love Lilica and Lincoln and Jack
If I want to thrive.
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9. |
The Aleph
03:31
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The Aleph
We turned into a gas-lit lobby
I noted hostility in the eyes above the beards
Jack shuffled beside me groaning rhythmically
Wary, anxious and scared.
My guide remained composed unsmiling
His head disappeared first into the darkness
Into a scene I well knew. I called out “Please!”
Cringing in mad terror, against my will
We joined our guide in the booth
It was an aleph moment for me
I saw all that has been and is to be, and both
Had me twitching in impending panic
I saw Jesus and Nietzsche together
Resting as would a lion with a lamb
I saw how every stone in the earth was formed and encrusted, stratified and impacted. I saw the desert and the ocean switching sides. I saw all the mothers with all the fathers enacting their primal scenes. I saw all the capillaries dilating of all the eyes made sore by the dust of the wind-swept earth. I saw five billion suns set and rise for ten billion years on twenty billion planets. I saw every wave that ever washed on every shore…
I sat petrified, like a sculpture
In a bad place. And he to me, “I told thee I
Would have to leave. Do not be unstable
As you grieve. Promise me you will also sing
The song of the bleeding throat,
Death’s outlet song of life. Rest, ye, now,
You have yet more travelling in the morning.”
I tried to say, “I cannot leave you behind.
I cannot let you die.” But I couldn’t move.
The show commenced and I saw the gun
The shade glanced at me as he stepped in on his hooves
The gun did not waver and the shot rang out.
Lincoln fell forward and off his chair.
Booth leapt over the railing, shouting
“Sic semper tyrannis!” Out of the air
He fell and broke his leg, “Oh!” he sang out
Jack and I were not freed and held fast where
We were, crying now in pity and fear,
While the crowd gathered to take him away.
I cried until my body ached
And we collapsed in a pile in that place.
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10. |
Sprig of Lilac
03:23
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Sprig of Liliac
I awoke to Jack singing, “Michael rowed the boat
Ashore, alleluia.” He was out of key,
And solemn, but contented. He spoke,
“Uncle is gone. Gummawn. Gummawn. With me.”
I felt refreshed and it seemed a mystery,
Like I had been on this journey all my life
With someone to lead me and now I needed to
Go on on my own.
Such is the nature of strife
That its rewards are equal to
The proportion of suffering, if the sacrifice
Is sincere in the name of its resolution.
I stood with Jack and left the theater.
Bells sounded down the hillside and the coffin
Was being drawn down Union Street,
The grieving were gathered
To recognize a person who knew what mattered
And whose words would redound across time.
Jack produced a flowering branch and gave
It to me. I walked over and let it fall
Upon the cart which drew the black cage
Saying, “Here coffin that slowly passes,
I give you my sprig of lilac.”
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11. |
The Vaporous Tilden
03:35
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The Vaporous Tilden
He went forward hence, up Union, with Jack
Not a follower, but not leading where they would go.
Who could know how to carry on without their guide?
“Gummawn. He is still with us.”
At the moment when he came to wonder
In earnest over what would come next, a shadow
Fell upon the two, in the shape of a thunderous
Top hat, stealing from an alley, grabbing his elbow
More gloam than substance, it hissed, “They blunder
Who destroy Reconstruction to gain power.”
“Are you real?” asked Fing, “I smell you more than I see.”
“Indeed, I am the smoke of the candle gone out,
A dissipation, a wisping trace of history.”
“Please tell me why you're here.”
“I am the past returning differently
But the same, as a warning to the complacent,
They alter the structure of the nation
Who manipulate the levers of state,
By means of the influence of corporation
And media. They will sell freedom to the greatest
Bidder.
And it will require generations
To overcome was will be lost in the glitter.”
“What is the source of your prophetic claim?”
“Experience,” whispered the mist. “I am Tilden.
I won an election but lost the Presidency,
Which laid the foundation for the rotten building
Of racial relations and our continuing necessity
To claim equal civil rights,
Which is truly the same old story around here.
Even the war couldn’t alter our feral truth.”
Then the vaporous Tilden was gone.
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12. |
Frederick Douglass
03:20
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Frederick Douglass
One man more joined them
Against the flow of mourners, up Union Street
Fing knew he was Frederick Douglass, deep and fleet,
Elbow out in front. Fing, “Sir, do you have hope
Also, that this is the proper direction?”
“I know it is, yes.” His chin jutted as the prow
Of a ship on the high seas. “You know us not, yet you plow
Through the crowd in our assistance.” “A mission,
You might call it.” “So you knew to be here now?
You know why I’m here then?”
Douglass began, “You did not believe
In yourself, but you have been chosen among men
To invert the understanding of peace
By dreaming and waking and writing down words.”
“How can anyone believe in peace?!
How can words convey the absurd?!
All I’ve seen is turds!
I just got butt-fucked by Andrew Jackson!”
“Welcome to the club,” said the self-freed slave,
“We’ve received the same for four hundred years,
(We are) marginalized in our graves.
In fact, there were no blacks in your ring of tears/Perdition.”
Fing was ashamed, “I do take blame. My fear is
I won’t know how to represent.”
Douglass smiled, “That’s a start. It’s not your job.”
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13. |
Gertrude Stein
03:33
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Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein appeared and Fing was astounded
As she took her place next to Douglass
Thrusting her elbow forward,
Winnowing her way through the throng,
She said ,"Endless repetition, infinite variation."
Fing wept, “Lincoln hath given me glass for my eyes.
I‘ve seen scarlet waves, long since passed reason.
Are either of you prognosticators?” Stein said
"Endless repetition, infinite variation," again.
Endless repetition, infinite variation
Infinite variation, endlessly repeated
Endless repetition, infinite variation
Infinite variation, repeated endlessly
Jack sang, “Michael rowed the boat ashore, alleluia.”
Fing shouted, “You?! Jack, where are we going?” “Lilica,
Can’t you smell her?” Gertrude snarled
“I can smell her. Oh yes. She is love. You can smell her.”
Stein said, “A man cannot know such love from the earth.
The fecund salty abundance of the ocean.
The clouds and the rain, the loam and the delta.
There is too much manufacture in a man’s devotion.
Why you think of the world in terms of its dearth.”
“Jack, how much farther? Where is she?”
“We turn north on County.” “Is that all?! Can you tell her
We are coming?” “She knows,” hissed Douglass, “It’s we
Who do not know. But I smell her, I do. Nothing sweeter.”
“I see that shame is requisite,” Fing said, “To be with Lilica.”
Douglass smiled, “Yes, so just play the game
We’re almost there.” Gertrude pointed to the door
Of the St. Lawrence Church, and she said,
"Endless repetition, infinite variation," again.
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14. |
St. Lawrence Leeches
02:46
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St. Lawrence Leeches
Jack said, “We must be purified in the sacristy.”
Fing said, “I hope you mean we should give alms.”
Douglass said, “You need to be dry to continue the quest.”
Then a barber entered, “At your request.”
Fing objected but cant failed him in this case.
Douglass pressed him against the first pew.
The barber brought out leeches
Attaching them to Fing’s arms and chest. He retched
From the smell of the forensic brine, beseeching,
“They don’t do this anymore! And why in church?!”
Jack told Fing, “Keep courage.”
Fing snapped, “You aren’t being purified!”
“But I am leading us.”
“By the smell of fish in the harbor? And this is the charge
For your service?”
Jack scowled, “This discipline is
Your reward, your path to freedom. There is no
Other option. Consciousness is a cage.
The body was not made to sustain consciousness.
There is nothing else besides this tragic stage
And that’s what makes it so humorous.
Did you know that Michael was an avenging angel?”
Fing let his blood flow out. It didn’t belong to him.
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15. |
Wicked Edgar
02:18
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Wicked Edgar
With his blood drained, Fing ceased to feel the dim darkness
Of the church or the weight of his body.
Transformed and dry, he rose and limned
His lack of feeling thus, “I have been through a small door
And now I am expanding in the space
On the other side.” Douglass took Fing’s hand
To keep him from floating off.
Following Jack, Douglass said, “Leave the damned
Behind, embrace the next phase.”
Fing’s feet and shoulders hovered parallel
To the ground. Douglass tugged at Fing’s arm
Like a child pulls a balloon, string in palm.
They began to ascend a decahedral
Tower, by cramped wooden stairs.
He could not get his feet to the floor.
Fing, “Douglass, can you tell me more?”
They heard a man moaning, “Lenore!”
And saw a body fall past a small window.
The moaning man appeared as he descended.
Fing said, “This man is Edgar Allan Poe.”
Poe looked up, I know what hauntings cobwebs hold
So I must take out my eyes to forestall choking
On my tears.” Fing, “Is what I ask too bold?”
“No,” quoth Poe, “I have a third one hopefully.”
He tucked his eyes into his vest pockets, “For whom
Shall I cry anyway?” Fing asked, “Did you bring
The person who just fell up to the top?”
“She didn’t fall up! AAaaaaaghghghhh!” Poe began crying,
“She’s gone to heaven!” he sobbed, “I’m dying!
No lovers have loved so intensely as we.
I was not wicked to give her to Tlon.
I was not wicked to give her to Tlon.”
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16. |
Jack the Savior
05:55
|
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Jack the Savior
Jack began climbing again
Fing said to Douglass, “No small thing, electric light?”
Douglass replied, “Materially, for some. But come the harrowing,
They shall be swept like water down a sink.
No control over their environment,
Just submission to its physical stink.”
Douglass looked at Fing, “You know
That I will not go with you. I will stay.”
Fing asked, “How will I fall into Tlon?”
Douglass nodded toward the lumbering sway
Of Jack,
Jacked laughed, “Gummawn. Gummawn. Gummawn. Gummawn. Gummawn.”
Fing was surprised, “How is this shuffling stunted
Boy man going to deliver me to Tlon?”
“You must hold onto him, when you are shunted,
For, after this journey, he will go down.
You will meet Lilica on the other side. You will
Know what love is. You won’t want to go back.
Jack meets Tlon on impact.”
“He’s like a savior, Hercules or Aeneas.”
“Like anyone who helps anyone.
The only one who defeat him was himself.
You stand at the threshold and the wonder
Is that you are not alone. Even if you don’t know,
It’s all been done before. Why sorrow and groan?
The pressure is off. You just need to go on.”
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17. |
Before Drifting Away
03:39
|
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|
Before Drifting Away
Jack broke out into the open to reveal
In a peach and yellow sky over New Bedford
The last of the Texans drifting away
On the gulf stream winds
Fing prepared his mind for falling.
Then the impeached one appeared,
Shouting, “Nobody accepts credulously
That I committed high crimes.
‘Twas a scam!
After Lincoln, the Union was divided.
‘E pluribus unum’ never was real
All of those things we were taught to take pride in
Are nothing but impossible ideals.”
Douglass asked “Your crime was simply an indiscretion?”
“Deep divisions revealed in that enactment.
A cleaving at wounds which healed better
When we turned our attention against the Negro.”
Another grizzled man appeared, “That fetter
Belongs to me as well. I have worn it five score
Year. But I will jump again together with you Johnson.”
Johnson, “Hayes! This time we’ll fall into Tlon.
We bore malice toward none. Let’s go on.”
They hugged each other kissless and jumped,
But like a bubble hung in the air, dropping with
A small waft of air, before drifting up and away…
|
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18. |
Thank You, Goodbye
02:56
|
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|
Thank You, Goodbye
Jack took Fing’s hand and said, “Gummawn,”
Hauling Fing’s arms over his shoulder, to dive
With Fing on his back.
Fing begged, “Will you hold on?”
And looked at Douglass, “If I could shit myself I would.”
Douglass replied, “Fear is the last to go.”
“Thank you. Good-bye.”
Jack began singing “Michael rowed the boat ashore, alleluia,”
And they leaned forward. andentered free fall,
Screaming past Johnson and Hayes,
Jack was face-first, blissful. Fing looked out.
Night had come, only a shard of blue-green twilight.
He wondered if this would be the last thing he would see,
The screaming air, the approaching earth, and one star.
|
||||
The Microcosmic Examples Washington, D.C.
The Microcosmic Examples are Y.S. Fing and whoever is helping at the time. We tell stories using cosmic American music, purveying irony with love to a kick-ass beat. Everything else is happenstance. Don't be shy about listening closely and sharing your comments. We want to hear from you! ... more
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