DON'T CARE IF I DO

DON’T CARE IF I DO

 

Don’t care if I do don’t care if I don’t.

I’m letting go of the spinal cord

I’ve been hanging on to for years

to pull myself up over the edge of my mind

safe at last safe at last safe at last

to enjoy the view

like a man standing upright on a precipice

without a gnawing urge to jump.

One mile up is one mile down

and letting go

is my only way of hanging on.

Letting myself go over the cliff

will I revive from my annihilation like water?

Will daring say feathers and falling take flight

or will the lights just go out

before the movie begins

and I’m inconceivably not there to see it?

The abyss of my calling

is an intimately impersonal voice

that whispers of other dimensions

just under my skin

well within the comprehension of jumpers like me

who have fallen so long through the same blackhole

they’ve reversed directions

and now they’re falling up

as if a course correction

had been beamed up to Icarus

and now he were plunging into the sun like a spent satellite

sending little blips and beeps back

like illuminating details of his annihilation

not knowing if anyone is listening or not.

I’m so bright I’m blind.

Too much light can hurt the mind.

So I live by night and die by day

like stars that need a lot of darkness to shine.

I don’t struggle anymore to keep up with myself

like the shadow of an ambulance

because the darkness lasts longer than the radiance

and there’s a dark halo of comets

that rolls like the barrel

of a midnight special around the sun

that likes to play Russian roulette with its planets

but it takes lightyears after the gun goes off

for the bullet to strike home like a prophecy

that came true long long before

any of us were born

to see the light through our ears.

Don’t care if I do don’t care if I don’t

have a dark past or a bright future.

Now is enough of a mile

to keep me walking for awhile

whether I know where I’m going or not.

First you hurt from the exertion

of pushing yourself

like a rock up a hill

that keeps rolling back down upon you

like a stone over the entrance of the same tomb

that gave birth to you like luggage

in the locker of a bus-stop.

And then you give up.

You donate your rock

like a vital organ

or kissing stone

to some local Kaaba

and then join Amnesty International

to help indict

the genocidal asteroids

for past war crimes against the dinosaurs

forgetting that nuclear winter

was the sign of the times

that led to us.

A mammal’s just a reptile

that pulled one over on the rest

like a neo-cortex.

And if you go extinct?

Well

you can always say

you did your best

and tomorrow’s a new day.

You could see it that way

but I don’t

because it doesn’t make a damn bit of difference

whether I’ve got a point of view

or not.

Either way

I’m as clueless as my name

about why things change to stay the same

as if first you’re born of fire

and then you’re born of water

and then the night cuts you free

of your spinal cord like a kite

or a snake

moving through the grass

like the eye of the needle

that’s just been threaded

by a forked tongue

that gets you into paradise

faster than greased lightning

can be feathered with light

and you catch sight of yourself

in an oxymoronic corner

of the black mind mirror

as if the lowest of things

had just been given the wings of a dragon

and there were the eggs of all your past lives

lying around like fat moons

you could live on like an eclipse forever

burying and exhuming the light

like the white doves of old loveletters

in the hands of a black magician

that doesn’t believe in superstition.

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU ASKED ME HOW TO SURVIVE AS A POET

YOU ASKED ME HOW TO SURVIVE AS A POET

 

You asked me how to survive as a poet

among mad women

who want to tear you apart

to secure a place in your heart

by eating it.

I laughed and said

Turn gay.

But it wasn’t the right thing to say

and you were disappointed in me

and walked away

as if you were giving the world a dirty look

because you were hurt

and you expected the world to know it

because you hold the world

to higher standards

than the world can keep.

But if you were to ask me

now that I’ve upgraded myself

to a more sensitive gene for compassion

and the serious-minded meme

for a more acute sense of black humour

I would tell you to stop

listening to prophetic rumours

of your early demise

at the hands of savage women.

The flying ant sprouts wings

and lives for a frenzied hour in the sunset.

And an elephant can live for a hundred lumbering years.

But you as a poet won’t live any longer

than the lifespan of your inspiration

and women are the gate the source

the fountainmouth and watershed of it

and the way you see them

is who you are as a man.

I see you’ve estranged all your stars

so carefully

you’re lost in the chaos

of your own myth of origin

waiting for something to shine.

And though I know you think

you drift through the vastness alone

well beyond the reach of gravity

where nothing can get you down

like it or not 

women are your home planet

and you’re their shepherd moon.

A woman bends space around you

like a black mirror of dark matter

that distorts your face

into something clear.

A smear she wipes off on her sleeve. 

And you roll with the bet

like a skull playing Russian roulette

on your wedding night

knowing you’re doomed to lose.

And so what

if you don’t survive?

You’ve never been more alive.

So what if you’re consumed

as your flesh is rent asunder

like a lone tree on a high hill

by lightning bolts

that kiss like fireflies?

Only the insane

would go looking for life

with a weathervane

and even if your dick twitches

like a metal detector over Roman coins

and you’re amazed to discover

your face on them 

when you dig them up

even the dead know

you should approach

the dark muse of a dangerous woman

like a divining rod approaches a watershed.

Gently.

And with great fear in your heart

you haven’t been truly

empowered by your art

to overcome the coward

who would lie to her face

like a mirage lies to water

about why there are cracks in the mirror.

Among the many medusas maenads

mermaids muses and madonnas

that have come and gone

like phases of the moon

that turned you to stone

when you jumped into the snakepit

thinking you were immune

to their elixirs and toxins

because you had a serum for a shield

that could deflect their sex appeal

like a stealth fighter deluding their radar

you were the test-dummy in the ejection seat

that was targetted like a star

by a heat-seeking missile

that knew the moment you spoke

you were just another kite

burning in the powerlines

of a pre-emptive strike

on their nuclear facilities.

They shot you down for practice.

Women are the Iranians of the moon.

And men are their flying carpets.

What could a new lamp mean

to an old geni

if it won’t grant three wishes?

If you want to be a good dolphin

and learn to walk on water

like the Buddha did

five hundred years before Jesus

in the Lankavatara Sutra

and I heard you did

just the other day

you’ve got to turn your feet into waves

and learn to swim through stone

like barely detectable particles of black matter

deep underground

where science is listening for you

as if the first word of creation

were written in invisible ink

long before God ever said let there be light

and alienated three quarters of the night.

But you’re the orphan

of a motherless generation

that was left on the stairs

of the decade that took you in

and raised you as if you were one of their own.

But it’s not good

that you’ve never been at home

in your own homelessness.

You’ve been missing a lot

that you only get one shot at.

You’re a bright embryo in the wrong womb.

You’ve wasted your solitude.

The sixties were the second-coming

of a Cambrian explosion

of experimental life forms

that evolved psycho-chemically into us

by tinkering with our genes

as if they were the logos and memes

of a fossilized crustracean

in the Burgess Shale

of a spineless generation

that took the world by the tail. 

It’s later than we think

and some have gone extinct

and money’s become the tenth of nine muses

and love for the most part

when you take it to heart

is a mirage in the mouth of a drought.

But be that as it may

even before you’ve tasted

the mystic wine of a woman

or French-kissed the moon

you’re already groaning like a hangover

full of regrets

and imperious absolutes

never to do it again.

What kind of party is this

that feels the pain before the bliss?

That sheds before it blossoms

as if it dreaded the full moon

walking like Atlantis

into a roomful of doomed sailors

lying on her seabed

like the most lucid of lighthouses

happy to be lost in the depths?

You could vastly improve your lovelife

by learning to approach a woman

as if she were you

only inside out.

And you may be famous

for the things you doubt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

but you talk too much about genius

to know anything about it.

And you suppose

because I’m old and published

that I’m wise and caring

but as the Arabs are fond of saying

you can load a lot of books

on the back of a jackass

but it’s still the braying of a jackass.

Or as one of my past lives said

as she was leaving

for her good and mine

You’re a brilliant idiot

and over the course of time

I’ve become dumb enough to see her point.

But one of life’s greatest gifts to me

and the one that arouses

the most jealousy

is that I was born too stupid

to be a cynic

and so unlovable

I’m free.

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DON'T ASK FOR ANYTHING

DON’T ASK FOR ANYTHING

 

Don’t ask for anything

and I’ll give you everything.

Don’t demand I do anything

and there’s nothing

I won’t do for you.

You don’t have to be interested

in the same things I am

if there’s no difference

in our two solitudes.

I don’t need to know

where you’ve been

or where you’re going

or why I’m still here

as long as things are flowing.

I’m not in the habit

of entering the dark

by turning the lights on

but I don’t mind the occasional lamp.

So shine as you wish

down upon nothing

and I’ll wait like the Buddha

to be enlightened by Venus in the dawn

and running ahead of the sun

you’ll be the morning star

before it fell for Lucifer

and even then if you wish

I’ll be your desolate kingdom.

I won’t wear a clown’s facepaint

to conceal the lie

of my personal history

and you won’t need to apply

cosmetics to your mystery

like moonlight on eyelids of water

because what I will always find

most beautiful about you

is the part I haven’t seen.

And we don’t have to mean

anything to each other

you can read in a magazine

about young scars

falling in love with older wounds

because we’ll live in the moment

as if it were the afterlife of time

where no one’s ever heard of eternity.

I’ll deepen the dark

to enhance your radiance

and we’ll come together like opposites

in the eyes of the one seeing.

And you’ll encourage me to paint

more dynamically abstract

instead of stuff that sells

but it won’t be a contest of wills

as I read your poems out loud to myself

and remark to the dust on the windowsills

the muses live in the mountains

darling

not the hills.

But it won’t mean anything

by the end of the night

if we’re both singing a different song

you on the green bough

and me on a dead branch

and every pebble in the pyramid

it took so long to pile up like quicksand

is the foundation-stone

of an avalanche

that will bury both of us in a desert

that feels right at home

with necrophiliacs and thieves.

So when you drink wine in Ottawa

I’ll get drunk in Perth

and should you die

of an astronomical catastrophe

that wipes out life on earth

I’ll be the simple thermophilic bacterium

that elaborates your re-birth

in a new medium

you’re perfectly adapted to like me

who’ll be waiting for you

to crawl up out of the sea

onto land again

as you did last night

and then after a short walk upright

through the tall dangerous leopard-crawling grass

like a waterbird that leaves no trace

of its presence behind

take flight in the life of the spirit

as if my words were uplifted by your voice

like fire on the wind

so you can see

though I may be dark

I’m not blind.

And I can be

something close

to what you had in mind

when you first read me

that old myth of origin

like a bedtime story

that always began

with once upon a time.

I’ll be your knight and dragon in one

and overcome myself

on the way to your rescue

like Perseus unchaining Andromeda from the rock

by giving lock-jaw to a ravenous sea monster

by holding up Medusa’s severed head

like the red ghoul of the star Al Gol

burning like a hot jewel in a frigid constellation

or Don Quixote tilting at windmills

to keep them turning

or Sisyphus dreaming

of building the Taj Mahal one day

if he just keeps plodding away

up and down his little hill

without reservation

and a lot of good will.

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND IT ISN'T AS IF I DON'T MISS YOU

AND IT ISN’T AS IF I DON’T MISS YOU

 

And it isn’t as if I don’t miss you

it’s just that I realize

you’re not that person anymore

and neither am I.

People and things

grow away from each other

like stars in an expanding universe.

Their light might linger like a memory

but by the time it gets here

they’ve moved off into a different space

like waterbirds that leave no trace

of who we are now.

But we’re mingled in each other

like the nameless water

we took from the river

and gave back to the mindstream

that flows on forever

like stars and lovers and leaves.

I can still taste your valleys

even this high in the mountains

where even the echoes of things

are afraid of the heights

and hear your laughter

and the words you said to me

like nightbirds in the mouths

of lunar fountains

when no one else was listening.

I have gone on living with you

long after we left

for hearts unknown

as if gold still marrowed the bone

and the dead branch blossomed.

The breath within my breath.

The voice within my voice.

The  death within my death.

I can only see you on the inside now

but what has past

has as much creative potential

as the present

and I’ve watched you grow

as I have

into someone

as intimately inconceivable

as this world I find myself in

searching for something

that never shows up in a mirror

that can make me give up looking.  

Strangers to each other before we met

and what we knew of each other

by the time we left

stranger yet

how can I look upon

who we were to each other with regret

as if life had squandered an alternative ending?

Love might be

a heart-rending mind-bending bitch sometimes

guilty of war-crimes

and iron-willed truth

more of a truce with rust

than an oath of saint’s blood

sworn on a righteous sword

in a crusade of the word

against a forked tongue

but when has love ever not been

a lie you can trust

to lead you away from doubt

faster than thought can keep up with the universe

that keeps us guessing

whether it’s a curse or a blessing?

What gets better?

What gets worse?

And it’s an unholy obsession

to read a loveletter

as if it were the letter of the law on the make.

I wrote mine to you in fireflies

inspired by the muse of a snake

that struck me like lightning

with one fang

and healed me like a man

who could see again

with the other.

I treat yours like butterflies

I dare not touch

for fear of damaging their wings.

So I open their envelopes like flowers

and let them come and go as they wish

like earthly pilgrims on a divine wind

that has returned from an incredible distance

with news of the sinking of the Mongol fleet

by a hurricane-rose.

But I don’t embellish my defeat

or relish my victory

as if I lay at your feet

and you lay at mine.

I don’t stand long at the intersection

of a peace sign

where three roads meet

and take the one less traveled by

at a suggestion of the wind

as if it were a Road of Ghosts

and anyone who walked it

were walking away.

I whip the dust at my heels

into a gust of stars

that spins like a Sufi

bound to oblivion

like a shepherd moon

that’s just found its true direction

and freewheeling on my own thermals

like a red-tailed hawk on an August afternoon

or Messier 33

or a double helix

I let the road

that’s never left home

tag along with me as you do

all the way around the bend

of the known universe and beyond.

The red and black threads

of life and death

of passion and its passing

that bind us to one another

like rivers and roots and lightning

like the thorn to the rose

or horns on the moon

or two snakes copulating in the grass

like fire on the water

are not the kind of lifelines

that can be cut short

by fate and circumstance

anymore than you can wound

and separate water with a sword.

Water is its own physician

and heals itself

like a wound

that knows how to keep its mouth shut

when it’s drowning.

And fire is an old prophet

that sees better when it’s blind.

Two words for the same thing

like water and wave

come to the same sum

so nothing’s ever missing.

I loved you like time loves space

like absence loves

the nearness of things

in a loved one’s face

like an apple loves the ripening.

Like opposites engendered out of their union

love the continuum of knowing

no matter what direction they take

they’re headed back they way they came

like light out of the darkness

like the cosmos out of chaos.

But it isn’t as if

sincerity were born of falsehood

like a waterlily from decay

or the bad fell out of love with the good.

If you could only know

how many nights

I have spent thinking of you

down on my knees on the floor

looking for the skulls and moons

that have slipped from my spine

like beads from the broken rosary

of a cult that never caught on

or how many starless nights

I had to give up looking for my eyes

because of a lack of light

before the first gnostic firefly

showed up like a mystic insight

into a blackhole in the heart of the night

with a halo and a horn

that were both as true

as I was to you

and you were to me

or a knife is to its latest victim

or dark matter born of its own lucidity

to shape a new universe

out of everything that’s missing

until something comes alive that can see

it’s not the eyes that make the seeing

anymore than two lies make one truth

or two nothings make one being.

But the butterfly doesn’t make its debut

dressed in the jewels of the worm

it came from

like a loveletter out of a cocoon

when it opens its wings to let them dry

like the pages of a book

somebody’s been crying on.

Every moment of our lives is as true

as any other

even in the way they’re sometimes not.

And you may be long gone from here

but what’s far

is just the other eye of what’s near.

And though it was lightyears ago

that I loved you like a star

that was always a night shy of shining

like something you kept back

like the vagrant secret

in the flagrant heart

of a black rose

that only bloomed at night

I want you to know though it’s late

and my vision of life

is shedding its eyelids like the moon

to see better in the dark

by turning out the lights

like the small windows

in the houses of the fireflies

that could never keep their zodiacs in line

I could never separate space from time

and it’s always been you

that comes like a grape to a dead vine

or a constellation to the meaning of a firesign

rising from its ashes

with no exit in mind

that could ever find a way out.

The past of tomorrow

is the future of yesterday

and they’re both happening now.

Three waves of water.

Three petals of the same blooming

that goes on forever

like all the birds it takes

to make a feather.

And though there may be infinite room

in one mouth

for many words

and the eye can go on

gathering flowers and stars forever

without dropping one

the only way to say

what can’t be said

is to let it say you

so you don’t know

who’s playing the picture-music

though it sounds a lot like you

except the notes are true

to a theme that can’t be heard

except by a nightbird

that cries out in its solitude

like the first and last words

of the same voice in the dark

that calls to you

I am more inspired

by what I don’t understand

than I am by what I thought I understood

about how dangerous it was to be good

in a bad neighourhood in hell

that didn’t know how to defend itself

against thieves that returned their innocence

and generosity was looked upon as a bully

and any kind of compassion was acclaimed a coward.

But even through these broken windows

in the worst hours

when the heart was bruised

like the skull of the moon

and it wasn’t the solitude

it wasn’t the loneliness

that came to remind us

you can’t stare into the abyss for long

and expect to see stars at the bottom of the well

as your eyes are turning to stone

at the sight of your snakey reflection.

Sometimes it takes a lot of night

not to be blinded by the shining

like a star in daylight.

And I remember trying to deepen

the negative space

to coax the stars out of hiding

but nothing seemed to work.

And what gods didn’t we try on

like the stars and weather

to see if they could fit

the world we were living in like skin

with enough room inside to hide us

from what was most human about us

when we stepped out into the open?

The fame of a good name

that lives up to its legend

like a spontaneous myth of origin

is wine

compared to the vinegar of celebrity

that spells it out like bitter gossip

that’s run its course

like spit

from lip to lip

then sells it out as a farce.

I may have fallen upon

hard cold times

like a Martian meteorite

trying to put down roots in Antarctica

like a refugee’s last chance at survival

but that hasn’t changed my point of view.

I still look up to you

like a sad mad intoxicated fire

looks up at a constellation

on a long lonely desert night

and sees that it’s still just as beautiful

as the first time it bloomed in the flames

like the flower of a story I once knew

where all the lies come true

like lovers in chains

and unknown heros

that can’t put a face to their names.

 

PATRICK WHITE