APPARITIONS OF THE MUSE

APPARITIONS OF THE MUSE

Apparitions of the muse

hanging her stars

from the end of my nose

like an exotic fragrance of night

more revealing than the light.

There. That’s mine.

The constellation of the donkey,

and there beside it, do you see

that red-haired star

blazing like a woman with a carrot?

I’ve followed that star for fifty years

always a mountain away from the valley

like a passionate Sisyphus

rolling the earth up a hill like a stone

happy with my own absurdity,

happy to go mad for her sake alone.

Elixirs of moonlight

mingled with strange waters

and I drank until I drowned

in the ferocity of my own delirium

like a myth that’s forgotten

which stars it belongs to.

I’ve never been much of a martyr

and bored with lies

I’ve always been two hells shy of a messiah

but I have fallen on the thorns of the moon

more than once

after my long descent

down the burning ladders

of God’s last word on the matter,

so there’s no splinter of the true cross

to needle the issue

like a compass or a crucifix.

And it still puzzles me

why it’s always my blood

that rushes to the end of my pen

like a volunteer army

but it’s always somebody else’s flag

that gets raised above the rubble.

Pyrrhic victories at best

when I’m not feeling cursed or blessed

by any kind of mystic meaning

convincing me I can firewalk

barefoot on stars

when I can’t even get

this blue pebble of a planet

out of my heart like a shoe.

But even letting go of all their leaves

like loveletters home and refugees

the trees can only go so far

as the wind and streams will let them.

And then there’s a darkness

that doesn’t taste of stars.

And decisions that cut

like the smiles of broken mirrors.

And turmoil in the snakepits of desire

that are thrown like angry acids

in the eyes of the seers

who saint the rain with their sorrows

like old calendars the abandoned houses

of crossed-out tomorrows

playing x’s and o’s with the moon.

It’s a freak of enlightenment

to turn love into a discipline

inspiration into a law

and godless wonder into superstitious awe.

So I listen and say nothing,

see and don’t reveal,

understand but never think I know

the gates that pass through me

when you call to the wild geese in the fall

and I am startled by the loneliness of the answer.

I’ve seen you in the nightstream

down the mountain,

the river and the sea

that sits below the salt

at her own table,

and I still suspect it was you

that turned my bitter tears

into the brittle chandeliers

that fell like ice-storms in a fountain

to silence the voices of the mirrors

the birds kept flying into

like windows at war with the sky.

I was out of the egg.

I was out of my mind at last

like a gift I didn’t deserve

and the universe was full of your absence

because you were the embodiment of my longing,

the darkness in the light

that stood aloof from the meaning of everything

as if your only proof were your eyes

and that were enough

to answer the empty skies with stars.

You may put on flesh and blood

and in your human proportions confess

you don’t believe this,

but you can never be attained,

never be embraced

never be contained

by any avatar of who you are

because like space in all directions

you are limitless

and even time is consumed

in the root fires that grabbed you by the ankle

and pulled you underground

to dress a goddess of light

in the nocturnal jewels of the dead.

And it is not a perogative of the beatifically born

to be demonically wrong,

but I have heard the skulls in the song

that allures the unwary sailors

to the lunar horns of your fishbone harps

to smash them on the rocks

as if you took a tragic delight

in the sheer delinquency of your power

to arouse and extinguish desire.

Anyone can come up

with a meaning for life

but you are the muse

of meaning itself,

the meaning of meaning

when anyone asks

without expecting an answer.

What woman that I’ve loved

like a river reaching the sea

have you not been

over these long, intense years

of radiant tenderness

and creative commotion

and an ominous darkness

out over the ocean

when the moon turned around

like a bride in bed

and revealed the far side

she kept to herself like stars?

And it’s still a shock and a marvel to me

when you disappear into the air

like a breath someone neglected to take

when it bloomed on the window.

I don’t doubt your capacity to devastate

and I have the urns and the burns

and the ashes to prove it

and know on a whim of your arrogance

you could leave the phoenix out in the cold

and douse the dragon like a torch

in your fire-proof waters.

But lately, out of the flesh,

I look for you behind the eyes

of every woman I meet

and it’s rare that I find one

whose blood and passions

you’ve worn as your own,

whose mind is a jewel of yours

that flows like a star sapphire

down a dark mirror

older than the meaning of life

that relflects you in the light of a black sun.

And I know enough not to ask

about those lockets of blood

you hang like thorns

around the neck of your mystic rose

like the first and last crescents of the moon.

I opened one once to see

whose picture you carried inside

like a butterfly you were working on

or a loveletter in a bottle you never sent

and I’m still not certain

I was demon enough

to survive the miracles

you released upon me

like a hive of angry angels

but I came to know

what the loss of heaven meant

when I ran from the garden

through the closing gates

of your wishbone,

on the short end of the stick I write with.

PATRICK WHITE

WHO TAUGHT YOU

WHO TAUGHT YOU

Who taught you to abhor the savage

within you

as if you were

an intolerant missionary to yourself?

Or walk into the room

and sit down

like a civilization that can’t compose itself?

And what strange habits you have for eyes

like ominous seabirds off the coast

of the continent with nowhere to perch

you’ve just discovered about yourself

that doesn’t bear your name.

And o come on now

isn’t it the most grievously wounded

who cry out the loudest

in their delirium of pain

and shake their wills

like steel at the ruthless heavens

though all they’ve ever really done is heal?

And why slash out in your anger

like the moon at everyone

when you should know by now

better than anyone

that whenever you do

it’s the sword that bleeds to death?

And you say you’ve tried to live decently

in an indecent world

but it’s a shame

you’ve never walked barefoot anywhere

without your morals in your hand like shoes.

That’s just the mud and water of it

between your fingers and your toes

but I’ve never joined a Buddha

eating flowers for lunch

who would have it any other way.

Or as Solomon said to so and so,

on his way to the temple

to set an example,

half a baby isn’t the same as a whole bunch.

And then broke down in tears.

We all have our fears and illusions

but isn’t so much suffering in the world

generated by the fact

we cherish our misery

like self-inflicted voodoo dolls

we won’t let go of

because nothing else

looks like us into the void

and sees nothing that looks like us

looking back with stars in their eyes?

But what a surprise to be here at all

stepping in and out

of these coffins and lifeboats

paired like shoes under our beds

where they gape

like mouths before the open sea

that has washed them ashore

like dust out of its one good eye

we just flew into

like birds against a windowpane.

And even more of a wonder

is the day you discover

you can taste the full harvest

in every crumb of a dream

and even in the lamp

that’s gone out in the night

clarity is still faster than light.

Within you I swear

on all that is human

are worlds within worlds

like the spherical mirrors of the morning

hanging their eyes like jewels

in the webs of the dreamcatchers

that looked everywhere

through the spiritual lost and founds of the light

but couldn’t find us until nightfall

when we each came out like a star

above our own manger

and the darkness was sweet with gifts.

The blind don’t diminish

the brightness of the mirror

when they hold themselves

up to it like a shadow

and even when your eyes are open

you don’t add a feather of light to the shining

though you burn like Icarus without a starmap

by flying too near the sun

beyond the heels of your aspiration.

And even when we are crazed moths

in a straitjackets of flesh

seeking asylum in the fire,

isn’t it the Promethean nature

of every living creature

that has ever stolen from the gods

even in a state of ashes

not to be bound for long by anything

that isn’t out of reach?

It’s not the art of a petty life

to know how to long

for the impossible for years

without disappointment

knowing that if appearances

can be deceptive

then so must be the illusion

when anything disappears.

The important thing is not

to try to attain anything

by reaching out

a finger shy of God

for things like life and love and light

as if you were a dead battery

asking the stars for a jumpstart

when one of the myriad truths

of the dark matter at hand is

you don’t have to work hard

to earn your own gifts

like a beggar in a palace

that doesn’t recognize her own face

looking down upon her

like her own reflection in the heavens,

as if her eyes always had to go

in the same place either side of her nose

and couldn’t flow along

with the shoreless starstreams

like easy fish dopaddling through space.

And if you must cry out

like an insatiable mirror

for things you’ve lost

or pine at the gate

of your own homelessness

like a long sad farewell

to all those things that never came

like the sea to your feet

as if every wave

were meant to fit you

like a glass slipper,

then I suggest

with only a whisper

of night in my voice

to tempt the light out of hiding

that the next time you cry

like a wounded sword

that no longer divides

the empty grotto of the pain

that separates lovers

like two halves of the same brain,

look up at the nightsky

as if you were looking into the eyes

of your own prophetic tears

and see and be more deeply

than any kind of telescope

or wishing well

in every single one of them

the dark pregnant mother

of the billion chandeliers

that hang like stars above you.

PATRICK WHITE

ISN'T IT OBVIOUS

ISN’T IT OBVIOUS

Isn’t it obvious by now

matter is the language

of the spirit

that expresses itself

as flowers and trees

and you and me

just as we are.

Matter is the mother-tongue

the alphabet

the periodic table of elements

of what can’t be said about God

without resorting to signs

like water and oxygen.

The runes of the mountains.

The purple passages of the sea.

And the moon who couldn’t find

anything beautiful in her bleakness

long before Samuel Beckett.

Out of an almost perfect vacuum

out of nothing

out of space

its thirteen atoms of hydrogen

per cubic centimetre

like magic beans

a longing for existence arises

spontaneously out of the abyss

as if it just remembered the name

of something that came back to it

like a lost thought

and happily blurted it out like the Big Bang.

God mind the abyss nothingness

the cosmic id

call it what you want

they’re all just waves of the same sea

iridescent bubbles rising out of the depths

like independent cells with shapeshifting nuclei

or the membranous worlds in hyperspace

that start with a kiss

and end with a face in the window

staring out into the same old darkness

like a syllable of dust

in awe of the silver-tongued stars.

Mind does its best

to take a good guess

but it doesn’t really matter

if you’re right or wrong

because everything’s

been clear and true all along.

The point is.

There’s no point to this.

You just break into song

like a bird that can’t help itself.

You gather everything into yourself

like a blackhole

with a creative affinity for stars

and a key turns deep inside you

and suddenly you’re walking

through an infinite number of doors all at once

that have freed you from yourself

like a replicating cell.

Water looking at itself

with eyes of water.

Mind looking for mind with mind.

The snake trying to swallow its own head

as a sign from infinity

that it’s going to take forever.

Illusions of light

burning like jewels

in the mirror of rain

rooted in the starmud

of the human brain

that thinks if it elaborates enough laws

it can hold the universe to account

for the cause of its behaviour.

Oceans roll off its tongue

like drops of water

from a blade of grass

and things keep on happening

like galaxies and starfish.

Be the bright vacancy

that shines out of your dark abundance

like a waterlily putting a white spin

on the death and decay of the swamp

that aspired to it

like the Buddha watching Venus in the dawn

or a magnanimous loveletter

as long as autumn

at the end of a mean affair

that sweeps it like stars and leaves

off the helical stairways to heaven forever

like the memory of mutant genes.

Be the eleven that comes of seven

and dot the dice with the starmaps

of the chance constellations

that rolled your way

like a genome

without asking for your advice.

If you were really down on your luck

you wouldn’t be here to know it

so why not risk it all

like a universe in the beginning

in one throw against

the wall in a dark back alley

that’s been breaking banks

and bringing the house down ever since

like an incommensurable decimal

that escaped the confines

of a whole number

that couldn’t restrain it like a straitjacket?

Add yourself to things like zero

and amplify their effect

like a deep canyon foretells

the echo of things to come

that are well beyond your voice.

You don’t need to choose

when there’s nothing you can’t refuse.

There’s nothing to win or lose.

Time may well be

the adolescence of eternity

that puts cracks in its vinegar

and wrinkles its wine

but who wouldn’t rather play

than work at being who they are?

Honour the wound with a scar

that’s worthy of what you have suffered

to express yourself as you are

like a firefly in a palace of light

with a deep insight

into the black mirrors of dark matter

that multiply your afterlives like stars

in the eyes of the windows

in the house of life

that were broken from the inside out.

Astound your own vision

with the kind of crazy wisdom

that knows the crown of the universe

doubles as the dunce-cap of a cosmic egg

and say what you have to say

to add yourself to the conversation

like a bridge to the few bars of picture-music

that look and sound just like you

when you refused to crush

the head of the serpent under your heel

like the end of the long interminable road you were on

to salvation.

And you were amazed

when it struck you

like an elixir of life

emerging from the eclipse

of a dark venom

you didn’t get up off the ground

like St. Paul who had been Saul of Tarsus.

And you weren’t the Tiresias of either sex.

There was no blind catharsis.

But your heels sprouted wings

that mastered the wind like words

and the snake flew away like a dragon

with a lot in common with birds.

PATRICK WHITE

LIFE'S A GENIUS

LIFE’S A GENIUS

Life’s a genius.

Not a mediocrity

looking for reasons to live in the morning.

Life’s not a plan.

It’s a spirit that doesn’t need one

whether things go right or wrong.

Life is light and water.

It delights in going everywhere at once.

Mediocrities have genius

but they don’t know how

to play with it like a child.

Their eyes peek

through knotholes in the fence

but they sacrifice their longing

on the conventional altars of common-sense

and never throw the ball back over the hills

like the moon coming up

or the sun going down

without worrying about

breaking the neighbours’windows.

Life throws whole mountains around

and turns the cornerstones into quicksand

and goes down with Atlantis

only to come up again like Moby Dick

spewing stars out of its blowhole.

Mediocrity has its feet planted firmly on the ground.

It never goes anywhere it hasn’t gone before.

It’s the kind of fire

that sleeps with an extinquisher

in case things get too hot to put out.

Mediocrity shares.

But life’s the kind of genius

that gives like an apple-tree

that fully expresses itself

through infinitely more

than four seasons

no two alike

without caring if it’s of any benefit to anyone.

Mediocrity’s stunned by the blossoms.

Genius tastes the fruit.

Life’s the kind of fire

that doesn’t have a root

you can pull up and take home with you

to add to your garden

like a new word to your vocabulary.

Mediocrity spells it out.

But genius is the dream grammar

of a spiritual alphabet

that isn’t used to taking orders.

It doesn’t have twenty-six words for inspiration

like potted geraniums all in a row

and only one for freedom

it weeds out like morning glory

and dandelions

whose vagrancy threatens

to overwhelm the rest

with a longing

for the happier memories of their homelessness.

Mediocrity’s a highway lined with roadkill.

Genius is a river

that goes around

not through the hill

and though there are fleets of waterlilies all along its banks

that gather like the Spanish Armada every year

to burn the infidel irises on the far shore

back into the true church

they never set sail.

They stay anchored to the coast

like loveletters from buddhas upstream

rooted in the flowing.

Mediocrity writes a great poem.

Genius lets the poem write itself.

Mediocrity signs its own vanity.

like a work done well.

But genius doesn’t have

anything to sell

that ever belonged to anyone

in the first place.

Life is the generosity of space

that blows stars in your face

and gives you the eyes to see them.

Mediocrity confines the muses to a hareem

to compel their obedience.

Mediocrity is a great sea without any tides.

Genius sleeps with women

it never thinks of as brides

because it can feel their power

like a waterbird feels the waves

breathing like the sea beneath it

wild and profound

cannibal creators

oceans in the black rose

dripping like the blood

of enlightened virgins

from Kali the Crone Destroyer’s mouth

eating her own like the moon

as if she were life itself.

Mediocrity never includes

enough destruction in its creations

to be credible.

It goes along with the swans

like afterlives in the moonlight

but not the snapping turtles

that drag them down into the mud

like constellations brought back to earth like kites.

Mediocrity defangs the moon.

Genius flows down

its first and last crescents like blood

knowing one fang kills you

and the other heals you for good.

Mediocrity is hemmed in

by thresholds it never crosses.

It never colours outside the lines

into the negative space

of the forbidden white beyond.

It’s never gone gone gone forever gone beyond.

It’s a star with a lazy eye in an expanding universe.

It never reads the writing on the wall

between the lines

like fossils.

It’s afraid of the dark.

It fills whole galleries

with works like arks

with two of every kind

that are signed like truces

it made with its imagination

as if the imagination

ever kept its word

to anyone who was afraid of it.

Mediocrity keeps an eye on itself

like a documentary.

It comes to the right door

but it never gains entry.

It’s lost in the labyrinth

of its own fingerprints.

It leaves too much evidence

at the scene of the crime

and turns over on genius

at the drop of a dime

for getting away with everything

like the mastermind behind it all.

Mediocrity sings like a canary in a coal-mine.

Genius howls at the moon

among the mountains

high above the timberline

where she takes

her first and last crescents off

like handcuffs off an escaped convict.

Mediocrity lives

as if it’s always

making up an alibi

for something it never did.

It’s easier to lie about a sin of omission

than it is to tell the truth

as if you weren’t signing

a celebrity confession.

Genius lives out in the open

where everything’s well hid

like a mason jar full of fireflies

without a lid.

Mediocrity hugs the shore

like a lighthouse

that’s afraid of everything

it can’t shine a light on.

Mediocrity shows you its scars.

Genius shows you the wound.

Mediocrity’s amazed

that the universe

got as far as it did on its own.

Genius walks the rest of the way alone

and doesn’t care if the path it’s on

reads like an exit or an entrance.

Mediocrity looks for acceptance.

Genius throws the audience out the window

like an old typewriter with keys missing

and all its loved ones

smiling in the front row

as if they were in on the know

and sits down by itself at the piano

and lets the silence play

whatever it wants

all night long.

Mediocrity makes a big splash

like an inert gas

in a flickering neon sign

advertising one night stands

in a cheap roadside motel.

Genius shapes space like black matter

that stays hidden

on the far side of gravity

behind the leaves

that grow on its boughs like galaxies

that wait like nests in the treetops

for the shamans babies and birds

to fill their bright vacancy

with the dark abundance

of a language older than words.

There are lyrical swords

that have mastered the art

of writing their eloquent history

in scars that pre-date cuneiform.

That’s one muse.

And when the dark mother

who gave birth

to the ten thousand things

whispered the mystery of the universe

into her own ear

she said it in stars.

That’s another.

And when you listen to the moon

as she summons her own

like lost echoes and mad shadows

to the fullness welling up inside her

she sheds her eyelids like loveletters

she’s read over and over again

out loud to the lunatics

like cracks in a dry creekbed

or a prophetic skull

waiting for rain.

She’s beauty pain and death

all rolled up into one

black rose of inspiration

she hands out

to those of us she loves

like an eclipse

without an explanation.

Mediocrity doesn’t understand this.

Three lucidities in one black mirror

before the arising of signs

and all it’s looking for

is its likeness

in the meaning of everything.

Humans may have been created

in the image of God

but the world’s not created

in the image of humans.

It’s a lot crazier than that.

Mediocrity makes a habit of significance

to justify its eyes

to the nightwatchman in the mirrors.

Genius pulls the hat out of the rabbit

and the magician disappears.

PATRICK WHITE