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Register 5 (Dry sound ? Hall 4?)
The sun dips down
below the red-brown smog
hangs on the greasy sky line.
Someone downtown
throws a switch,
& its night,
pitch-black
and the stars
start running
up & down
the neon sign
makes the dancing girl dance
all up & down the rain-soaked sky.
One of the stars
is burnt out so
there's a little lurch
in the flow of the lights --
a blank space
near the left breast
of the neon girl.
This is the structure of our desire.
The structure of male delusion.
The desire to devour and to be devoured.
Sun went down
hours ago
big ball
of rage.
And the naked limbs
of the black trees
shine silver in the neon rain.
Threads of lightning
stain the harsh chemical sky
to the west
and the black rain
runs down the gutters
into the emotional drains
of our Glass city.
In the city
things appear
in their last incarnation,
stripped of everything
but the sheen
of an intense
nostalgia
for the beautiful,
everything is
still beautiful,
still alive
still moving
in its thin blue
mental world . . .
but really
these streets
are more memory
than reality --
Success looks
just like a different kind of failure
& for those who still care
death is the only acknowledged master
of transcendence.
The one called
the Slave of Habit
huddles under the Marquee
of the Starlight Theatre.
He's wearing the mask
of an ancient up-town wolf
ain't havin' no fun.
Thin white veins
come out of his eyes
like rays come out of
a dead carbon sun.
out of the soiled gloom
behind him . . .
garish posters
of hard faced men,
women in tears . . .
the violence
of their relations
spreading out
like a soundless
mental explosion
around his head.
Up-stairs in the
Sunset Hotel
an old man sits
in his narrow room
& watches the rain snakes
slide down the window
leave tracks in the grime.
And all night long
the Glass City animals move
through the wet blue streets
each in possession
of its own characteristic pride
each trying to hide
its own special instinct
from the competition
on the other side.
The feral dog,
the lion & the rat --
The old man's thoughts shine
at the bottom of his mind
like dirty coins in a dirty hat.
And the rain comes down
on the steep angle of grief,
& a lethal smile
drifts down the street
on a long leather leash . . .
& way across town
the molten glass lovers
curl together like smoke
on their blue steel bed sheets.
Sun went down hours ago
a big ball of rage
& the naked limbs
of the black trees
shine silver in the neon rain.
And the old-man sits
in his narrow room
in the midst
of a clutter of atoms
slowly losing their shape
& the transient light
from the window
brightens & then fades
across his pale blue face.
He is learning how to die.
He is watching how his mind,
bereft of insight or connection
begins to break up
on its own design.
He is watching how
the pure instinct
to survive
has transformed itself into
a predatory beak
digs a bloody hole
in the accidental flesh
of memory.
He is fascinated
to watch
how his mind,
at the end of its tether
is overcome by a welter of
paltry criminal thoughts,
how it learns hatred for itself
& how this hatred
gives birth
to a vast yearning
for something else. . .
Outside on the street
memory blows
like a fine silver mist
out of the sad wet trees
makes the sound of children
playing leap-frog in the park,
his mother's voice calling out of
the rain-soaked stubbornness
that things have turned into,
echo down sleep's
long metal corridors,
over the tracks
and into the field
of long waving grass
where the blue-boy sits
with a black cat called Ticket
curled asleep in his lap.
A large glossy black bird
sits on the wires
outside the window.
Its bones are full of a pale gold light
that shines out in the darkness.
And the old man
sits in his narrow room
& drinks a little wine
& thinks about the people
that he left behind.
And their pale blue eyes shine
like so many pale moons
over the ruined city
& there ain't no sound
but the sound of rain.
And there ain't no time
but the time it takes
to watch the rain snakes
slide down the window
leave tracks in the grime.
Sun went down hours ago
big ball of rage.
its night
& the stars
are running
up & down
the neon sign
makes the dancing girl dance
all up & down the rain-soaked sky ...
& there's something broken
in the stars
& there's something broken
in the Blue-man's spine
& there's something unfinished
something that calls out
from the fragile cage
of his heart,
something full of love
& disappointment
& rage.
And the blue man sits
in his third floor room,
and his large organic head
shines out of the gloom
a thing of equal beauty
& ugliness,
his body
a pillar of light
& a horror of instinct
run down --
his body,
(including all of its conditions,
its messages & states)
is at once,
the ultimate sign
of life's betrayal
& the bearer
of the all
& the everything.
Down on the street
a woman walks home alone . . .
[They call her Crazy Jane]
[[Her reflection slides like a cold hand along the thick glass doors of the
Starlight Theatre where the wolf of habit stands stalk still in the
shadows]]
(Let Thomas wind down & change patches
& hit a chord or two.)
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Mind
Fields I
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Mind Fields II
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