Listening to it we become ocean.
- John Cage on the music of Lou Harrison
You become ocean . . . tangoing
with Joycean footnotes
an out-and-back watery trance
with John Luther Adams
at the end of the blur
the same views not the same
from opposite directions . . .
your words triadic harmonies which
despite the welts marching up your arm
attributable to the strands of poison ivy
that hitched a ride into your house
on the back of the standard black short-hair
who presides over your domain
and whose mewling will continue to crescendo
until you replenish his food dish
release us from us
into metaphysical reveries of blueness.
Your obsession
with the somnambulistic leanings
and bad press
of weedwhackers
segues to March 28, 1941
a little before noon
when Virginia Woolf
with hat walking stick overcoat
and large stone
wades into the River Ouse drowning herself.
She was an escape artist
who mapped the extraordinariness
of the interior
not unlike Anthony Bourdain
who wanted to be remembered as an enthusiast
introducing us to the wonderful world of food
in all its wonderfulness
before hanging himself
in a hotel room in eastern France . . .
so too the once-abandoned drive-in
on Route 32
now resuscitated revitalized and welcoming
with fanfares
for the common man and common woman.
Become ocean . . . all become ocean.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
prestidigitating words words words
into cauldrons of delight
the double double toil and troublers
given 24 hours to get outta Dodge
while you like Proust
for a long time going to bed early
seduce the watcher at the gate
slip past the dozing Rottweilers
in the warm fragrant kitchen
and into the hidden room
behind the stacks in the library
to gaze upon hundreds of portraits of beauty
from the comfort of a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
white leather Barcelona chair
circa 1929
before being eyeblinked back
to Tanglewood
surrounded by shadowy strangers
plodding toward the parking lot
united in their quest
for their anxious vehicles
chomping at the bit to traverse
lonely upstate two-lanes
on their late-night return trip home.
an out-and-back watery trance
with John Luther Adams
at the end of the blur
the same views not the same
from opposite directions . . .
your words triadic harmonies which
despite the welts marching up your arm
attributable to the strands of poison ivy
that hitched a ride into your house
on the back of the standard black short-hair
who presides over your domain
and whose mewling will continue to crescendo
until you replenish his food dish
release us from us
into metaphysical reveries of blueness.
Your obsession
with the somnambulistic leanings
and bad press
of weedwhackers
segues to March 28, 1941
a little before noon
when Virginia Woolf
with hat walking stick overcoat
and large stone
wades into the River Ouse drowning herself.
She was an escape artist
who mapped the extraordinariness
of the interior
not unlike Anthony Bourdain
who wanted to be remembered as an enthusiast
introducing us to the wonderful world of food
in all its wonderfulness
before hanging himself
in a hotel room in eastern France . . .
so too the once-abandoned drive-in
on Route 32
now resuscitated revitalized and welcoming
with fanfares
for the common man and common woman.
Become ocean . . . all become ocean.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
prestidigitating words words words
into cauldrons of delight
the double double toil and troublers
given 24 hours to get outta Dodge
while you like Proust
for a long time going to bed early
seduce the watcher at the gate
slip past the dozing Rottweilers
in the warm fragrant kitchen
and into the hidden room
behind the stacks in the library
to gaze upon hundreds of portraits of beauty
from the comfort of a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
white leather Barcelona chair
circa 1929
before being eyeblinked back
to Tanglewood
surrounded by shadowy strangers
plodding toward the parking lot
united in their quest
for their anxious vehicles
chomping at the bit to traverse
lonely upstate two-lanes
on their late-night return trip home.
