uTopianTurtleTop

VI.1.
a love story. they met. at first they didn’t hit it off. she got on his nerves, he irritated her. circumstances threw them together, and a crisis showed their true colors to each other. and those colors were love, loyalty, ingenuity, fortitude, and vitality. they lived together ever after, mostly happily, happily enough to deserve the epithet “ever.”

a song of love. a clever run-down of comparisons between the beloved’s qualities and some favorite hobby of the singer’s -- say, cooking. spatula, oven, recipes. find a double entendre, save it for the chorus.


2.
so it has come to this. Wallace Stevens on the tennis court, droll and irritable. stuck out here in the country, nobody wants to talk. Wallace drinks and casts aspersions. I try to engage him on the subject of insurance, he winces. “collectivization of risk, in theory; in practice, the art of withholding delivery of promised assistance; the privatization of collective delusions. there is no insurance.” uh-oh, a touchy subject, I change it. the weather? the provisions of our hosts? harumph and haroomph. on the question of poetic technique he is more forthcoming. “it’s the sound,” he says, “find your sound. the short bursts are jewels, but lately I want the extended un-resolved cadenzas, pages and pages, letting the sound lead you on, until, hopefully, a moment’s epiphany.”


3.
in the merry month
the merry mouth of the month
time’s anatomy
the shank of an hour
the shapely gam of a moment’s notice
yesterday shook a leg, tomorrow beckons with batted eyelids

a dalliance with time
makes you feel
like a million heirs to
the hippest thrones and
time will lead you
on
and in
the end will
have been worth
it


4.
so it has come to this it always comes to this because
this is what
it is and this
is what we’re
here for, in-
deed, this is
all there is, that
is, all
that is

this is
it!

oh sweetheart, I know, you
hoped for something
more, that’s under-
standable, I
mean, who
doesn’t sometimes

the sweet lines delineate the aura of this moment’s gesture

and that’s music


5.
ah exquisite
so often my dance card has been mostly empty
but who speaks of dance cards
the dance happens
you dance or not and I regret
not dancing more

it’s not too late, not yet

time asks you to dance
it’s your decision
sometimes the floor is crowded, sometimes it’s empty
but time always wants to dance


6.
merry merry merry merry
emphatic beery merry
oh no, not beery, not me!
yes yes yes, beery me beery!
beery or no, style matters not,
sober or tipsy, or tipsy on time,
tipsy on pattern, tipsy on delineations,
on discriminating indeliberations,
oh of course I don’t want the party to end
but why worry on that until it actually does
the movement the motion the story the merry

the end

V.1.
leave me hanging over the tree, over the moon, leave me desolate, bereft, glorious in my loneliness, my loveliness, hot tears on a hot face, and yet there is nothing to complain of, the complaint has no cause, it burns, it singes, it sings, it furls and throws

thrown! onto the hard earth, I land on my toes,
land on the earth on the land on the land on the earth
land on the earth, earth on the land,
hand on the hearth, ear in my heart, heat --
heat in my ear, heat in my hearth, earth --
earth in my heat in my heart in my hearth --
hear -- hear -- hear -- do you not hear?
no! I do not! my ears are stopped to --
to so much of what is sweet to listen --
I write you, dear beloved, of my heart,
I write you, only to say, to say, only to say,
only to say, what I must, that is to say,
I write you, only to say, this


2.
mistress miscellany
mister mist
obscurity

insecurity

peculiarity

insularity

I wish --
a horse --
a hoarse whisper --
listen --
you talk of what concerns me,
and worries furrow the earthy brow


3.
if you must, and you must, and you shall,
and so, do, you do, with vigor and vinegar,
strong and sour, tart on the tongue, tangy --
the must, the muscle, the force


4.
everything is gone now
everything’s here
and it all comes rushing
slow and deliberate
stately
it all comes, elbows firm
comes opening through the unsignifying word
the word without meaning
the word


5.
the word without meaning, guarded like a treasure,
a pearl without price, a tumbled jewel,
a polished stone, a sliver of silver brook,
a babble of geese, of bees in their flower,
legs full of pollen, making fertile,
the brilliant buzz, the colorful buzz,
the glorious buzz, the tumbling buzz,
the loquacious buzz, the what-a-great buzz,
the wow what-a-buzz, everything’s a-buzz,
it was, in its fuzziness, in its funniness,
in its because, its just because,
its wise and great because,
its sweet and kind because


6.
trill me thrill me over-frill me
fill me skill me someday kill me
live by the rhyme, die by the rhyme,
die by the wordplay, play by the wordplay,
happy to play in this grim and glorious world play,
happy in my sweet sorrow

III.1.
spinning blue streamers a cacophony of color of delight -- surprise! how the stresses and worries and cares of the day wash off in the fizz of showering streams of sound color

oh! if it could happen on these grayest of days then who knows the possibilities, who indeed, who in word and deed -- aha! -- the expectation delayed arrives anyhow


2.
the mess and squalor, yes yes off you go to play, go on, I’ll get to these, attend to these -- papers piled everywhere, clothes to put away, meals to cook for tomorrow, shopping to do --

an object picked up, looked at, turned this way and that, the light bounces off angles unexpectedly, a glint blinds the eye, and I’m nervous about possible interruptions

listening to music, the object turns me and looks at me, I can’t set it down, it sets me down when I’m done, and this sonic object sets me lovely


3.
I always think I’ll want to sit one out but the dance is lively and heck YEAH heavens YES I want to get up on that floor and shake a leg

oh it feels good humming along, not with the music, not humming the music, humming the bits of word-clumpage that comes tumbling spitting out of the tumbling hacking wordhoard -- did I intend to hoard them? No. Did I intend to be so miserly? No. -- things, life crept up on me and hardened my habits when I wasn’t noticing


4.
ah, the so -- life -- rows, we row, we so row o’er our sorrows, sow rue when we fail in our attentions, fail in our love

what is it in life that demands us to reach beyond grasping, aspire beyond attaining? and life is limited -- we all reach our deadlines and once we cross them can’t come back

is there consolation? the music says -- yes.
the music says -- I am. I am consolation.


5.
another dance.
I think I will sit this one out.
stare at the wall.
no, no -- thanks, I’m OK, think I’ll step outside.
Yes, the band is a charmer, I’m just, I -- need a breath of the outdoors

the music wafts through the walls. another starless cloud-covered night, the houses their uncanny smaller secret selves outside of sun’s glare, everybody in who can manage it, and those who can’t -- those who can’t -- those --


6.
last dance.
better go back.
I take my steps, mind elsewhere, Bach’s mind dancing around and through mine, so real and close and utterly out of reach, even if I had the skills to play the score, the mind that created it remains beyond, a mystery, as any gift of art must be, and all we can say is -- Thanks.

II.1.
Cello, oh cello, oh wood and singing tone, reverberant carved curlicue of tree, I want your sound in my teeth, bitter beer and steak

things come to an impasse, a momentary pause, a breath of frustration

there’s always a way, as long as life goes on there’s hope

yeah OK say your peace emphatically


2.
Casals’ tone’s got the juice, the sweet and bitter taste of life’s juice, a dark rainbow

continually opening doors

the rhythmic anti-metronomianism, the measure is not the law


3.
fling it
words can’t keep up
speedy
all so tossed-off-sounding, brilliant extemporaneity
the minor key lending a more sombre tone to it all

monks in their chambers arguing of God, with God


4.
a voice
singular
the line of melody a thread to mark the labyrinth

yes! there be monsters! and terrible things, oh! the terrible things,
yes, I have seen it


5.
“stomping the blues,” the memory of tears, we spin it out of the unknown, taking whatever bits of flotsam have wrecked on the soul’s shore, and spin our lines, make a net, to catch what one can, something to eat, yes, sweetheart, the band is some ear-bender


6.
time flies, 20 minutes closing in, I’ve barely started, can’t keep up, Bach got the something-going-on, I’d dance this stern and lively beat, Lord knows I could use more sternness, I must change my life, but how, ahhh -- well, well I hope, change it well, and evasive punning is NO CHANGE AT ALL

sorry it’s over. for tonight. damn. went too fast.

I.1.
after a series of arpeggiated chords the melody begins its cascade, all those 8th notes, and then chords again oh description how bland you are, Bach is thinking through the cellist’s hands, the tender attention and quicksilver consciousness, and you feel it building to that glorious return of the opening major chord an octave higher and at that joyancing at reaching the peak of the octave suddenly the piece is done and it’s on to number 2


2.
ruminations, the dude ruminates beautifully, a light-footed ruminant, dancing like a deer through the verge


3.
now the dance is partying, we bow and curtsey, how do you do and how do ye do and how do ye do again? ye olde dance rhythms carry their costumes from 300 years since


4.
late night reflections, the passions quieten and no less passionately, melody melody


5.
the quick step through town is all music visual? no but rhythms imply a body and are made by a body reading a score written by a body,

the lines can get echoey, turning over the same phrase from slightly altered harmonic perspectives

IF this one had a programmatic verbal framing I’d be digging its discursiveness more


6.
more dancing! a quick turn to minor doesn’t last long, we got ourselves a quick minuet and that means tonight we’re gonna party like it’s 1699 -- get the happy feet and we end with a satisfied happy heavy sigh