1. |
Music, the Beginning
05:53
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In the beginning
was…
the unimaginable.
Not of time,
not of space,
not measurable
by our senses—
unimaginable.
Mathematics
is music
for the ascetic.
Even the most abstract
is an extension
of our senses,
of touch and hearing
measuring the pulses
of the universe,
counting
and extrapolating,
generalizing
and naming,
estimating
the movements
of the living
universe.
Motion
is our perception.
Motion
is existence.
Motion
is what we can know.
Complete stillness
is imagined
as the stillness
of a chair
is imagined,
as the stillness
of a mountain
is imagined,
as the stillness
of the heavens
is imagined.
Human stillness
is like floating
on a current,
like an electron
in its lowest shell.
Our stillness
is moving
just enough
to take a step,
to utter a word,
to see
and listen.
But
stillness
after stillness
is death.
Without fighting the current,
without rising
to a higher level of excitement,
we cease to walk,
cease to talk,
fail to see
or hear,
and drift
into coma
and death.
Like the universe,
for we are of the universe,
motion is our essence.
Whether mindless
or planned,
movement
is our only certainty.
Mathematics
is the treadmill,
tight-lipped
from the burden,
turning a tight spiral
of utility.
Or mathematics
is a prayer
or celebration
of motion, a euphoric cry
ticking along
like the metronomes
of chaos.
Music
is the animal’s analysis
of the universe,
rejoicing
in the pulse of light,
the pulse of air,
the motions of water
and of plants rising,
the deepest vibrations
of the earth
and, most of all,
an animal’s own pulse.
Music is the cipher
by which we comprehend
the bonding of molecules
and the birth
of galaxies,
the replication of cells,
the shifting of continents,
the migrations of birds,
the ebb of tides,
and, most of all,
the only accounting
of ourselves
with the slightest hint
of truth.
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2. |
Hello, Earth
04:19
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3. |
Evil 1
04:38
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Evil is a person,
or a people,
reduced to a black hole:
the balance and dynamic
of a star,
the symmetry
of a solar system,
the gift
of its radiance
collapsed
into an uncontrollable
greed.
Evil is a fragment,
one little piece of a person,
or a people,
that grows
beyond recognition of its source,
that grows
to dominate the whole,
that grows
until it is the person,
or people.
Evil is self interest,
consuming, conquering,
with no concept of any other self,
no sympathy, no compassion,
no friendship.
Evil is the judgment
in the name of the father,
in the name of the mother,
the children, the ancestors,
in the name of society
and propriety,
in all the names
that mask the inner truth,
in all the names
that hide bigotry,
avarice and voracity,
the rejection or punishment
in honor’s name
that’s really in my name.
Or your name.
Evil consumes.
It does not give
or take
or ask any questions.
It mutters no truth
that can give peace—
only words
that ripen fear,
putrefying doubts,
turning difference
into not wine
but a flavorless poison
masked by a heady aroma.
Evil cannot be entered
except
the way a mouth is entered,
a stomach is entered,
an intestine is entered.
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4. |
Night Rain
10:48
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Whelmed low, settle me night sky.
One drop, another drop; cold rain
over the holds of thought.
They fall, they merge, dispelling
sympathy as well as fear.
Distending to the beaten street,
the hanging leaf, the fallen leaf
pressed smooth to the pavement,
the drifting leaf, the flowing dirt.
I am flushed with quiet,
hushed into words heard floating,
and I ride the stream so smoothly.
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5. |
Coverage
08:00
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Light glides down your cheek
the way rain sheets over glass
in luminous, rippling descent,
engulfing every curve of bone
or soft flesh, penetrating folds
and disappearing with your breath
as it drops between parted lips.
It falls in distorted cadence
like a streetlamp through old glass
enshrouding you in cold mystery.
I could spread over you warm
and embracing like the sunrise—
let me be the light!
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6. |
Effigies
02:40
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These kisses of my hands, once so eager for
your limbs, are but an effigy of the pain
we made to finish ennui and the midnight lore
of empty sleep. Their shadows linger in the refrain
of their chance enclosure, gripping your
enigmatic heart, whose memories have lain
closed to my deeper gifts of embrace,
leaving just kisses congealing on your surface.
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7. |
Passing
04:43
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Passing lightly through the air
I begin to see things differently—
I look upon myself without a care.
I couldn’t really see the change
or what had caused it but all
that was normal was now strange.
Many thoughts that were once right
were now as inappropriate as my
actions were not reactions to sight.
Something’s here, I’m on the brink
of a positive course of action, but to
find why I must move I must think.
Can I change these changes? Do I dare?
Maybe for the moment it doesn’t really matter
while I still pass lightly through the air.
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8. |
Work Yourself to Death
03:05
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9. |
Sunday Morning
03:47
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10. |
Miasma
06:14
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Black dogs upon my back,
black fog rolling through my veins,
siamese tom yeowling in my brain…
trying to get out!
…dripping into my mouth
to sting my throat,
burn my lungs with vitriolic fumes.
Trying to get in…
to get in…
come in?
Night gives no peace—
darkness provides no asylum—
abrasive nocturnal silence
holds no hope of surcease,
no comfort.
I can still see…
and I know.
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11. |
World Without Prayer
01:40
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swampmessiah Saint Paul, Minnesota
I was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1957. I've been drawing all my life and painting since about 1975; I started writing
poetry and rants in, maybe, 1976; since 1996 I've been recording those poems and rants, usually with a "musical" backing.
I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota. My partner and I have two children. I have a day job that is in no way artistic.
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