WANT TO FEEL SAD AND LYRICAL

WANT TO FEEL SAD AND LYRICAL

 

Want to feel sad and lyrical

but everything’s dull and gray.

The stars have been filtered out of my tears

and there’s no inspiration

in the local drinking water.

Given I’m made of starmud

it’s my nature to shine

but the darkness overwhelms me

like space turned in on itself

and the light leaves no sign

of my red shift off the spectrum

as I move away from myself

in the opposite direction.

What else can you do

but trust your own mindstream

even when it goes underground

or flows into a blackhole like a snake

that wants to get the sun off its back for awhile?

I’m tired of swallowing the cosmic glain

and disgorging the remains

like a collapsed parachute

that didn’t open in time

to fly from the nest.

I’m sick of the taste of baby birds

and the broken yokes of sunny outlooks

that come on like positive books

that lie about negative words.

And everytime the dragon eats the moon

like the communion wafer

of an unholy eclipse

it rains like a sacrifice

in a desert on earth

that gives in to temptation like water.

And things bloom long enough

to appall me with their passage

and just enough life goes on

to make the scorpions happy

and keep me

from slipping into a coma

like a frog in a dry creekbed

that wakes up like an alarm clock

with just enough time to procreate

and die like a mirage in an hourglass.

I want to throw joy around

like good money

after a bad depression

but there are still sunspots in the honey

that look a bit cancerous

and there’s no one around to get drunk with

who hasn’t grown paranoid of their own tattoos

or can stare for long

into the snake-eyes of their meaning

without turning into stone

like a snake-bit constellation

at the revelation

of how a toxin

can burn like the white phosphorus

of the fire-bug stars

no elixir of water can put out.

I am urgent with exits

but never seem to make it to the door

before the rafters fall down upon me

like the bones of a stressed-out dinosaur

in an extinct museum no one’s discovered yet.

And it’s getting harder to conceive

of butterflies and full moons 

emerging from the leftover cocoons

that hang from the dead branch

among the autumn leaves

like empty urns

that hold the ashes of the clouds

that don’t remind me of anything anymore

except they were once the shape of happier things

I called lovers and friends.

Inspirational beginnings

with unjustifiable ends.

The river doesn’t indict

the great night sea it flows into

like time disappearing into space

and the sea doesn’t make amends.

The green bough

may be proud of its first blossom

and hold it up like the full moon

with the wingspan of a swan

on the far horizon of fair weather

but the dead branch

is a scar of orchards and ghosts

that weren’t very frightening

until they went witching for lightning

and the lightning found them.

The green bough writes a loveletter

to the dead branch

and the dead branch writes a requiem back

that reads like cold water on dark roots

that bloom in fire

that can’t burn the desire

of a seasoned phoenix

out the heartwood

of so many past springs

preserved like ripples of rain.

Green bough.

Dead branch.

Same song.

Two wings of the same bird.

But tell me if you know.

When the phoenix sings

is it the lightning of the first

or last firefly of a word

embering in the ashes

of our lucid beginnings

that means the most?

Is alpha the creative guest

and omega the destructive host

or do they both share the same lifeboat

from coast to coast

like the pioneering survivors

of a sunken continent

that followed the whales

back into the water

but hasn’t come up for air yet?

I’ve learned to suffer the meaning of things

without regret for their passing

like a rootless tree

in an echoless valley

that can’t put a name to my voice

when it rises like a mountain out of the sea

to keep the prophet true to his prophecy

from the inside out.

I’ve stayed faithful as a backdoor

to the doubt

that I raised like my own assassin

in the shadows of the house of certainty

that didn’t leave a forwarding address

when the neighbours moved out of the zodiac.

And compassionate as water

I’ve washed the dirt of the friendless road

off the feet of the wise

and stars off the feet of the maniacs

that danced along the Milky Way

like a firewalk

for tormented insomniacs

still haunted by the living.

I need a better lie

than this one I call my life

to tell myself when I’m alone

with my personal history

of the impersonal mystery

of what I’m doing

walking around on the earth

like some tragic miscarriage of the light

with a wound as big as the night

that came of a womb as small

as the eye of the needle

it’s one thing to pass through

like a camel on its way to heaven

but it’s a bitch of a birth

to come back the other way

just for a change of direction.

I still want to believe

it’s all for the best

in some kind of brutal way

that doesn’t mistake us

for who we think we are.

And there are times

when I actually do

see through myself

with the cold clarity of a star

I can’t give a name to

in the black mirror

I must become

to escape detection

like the singularity

at the bottom of a blackhole

long enough to know

it might be shining down on nothing

but what a show!

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YOU KEEP LOOKING

YOU KEEP LOOKING

 

You keep looking for meaning in a world

you say hasn’t given you one

worth living for

and you’re down and disappointed

and all that red passion

that used to burn like books and leaves

has turned as mystically brown

as the background of a Rembrandt painting

or gone up in smoke

at the Bonfire of the Vanities.

Now you’re a copycat Savanarola

in a faculty lounge

trying to turn God back like the Renaissance

for behaving like the Medici.

You used to be a little on the teachy side

but now you’re boring and preachy

having settled the whole issue

of what you’re doing on earth like a fist.

You once went looking for the point of life like a grail.

Now you plunge it through everyone’s heart like a spear.

Like the terrible angel at the garden-gate

to prove you’re sincere as fire

you’re ready to kill anyone

who likes what they see in the mirror

that never wears the same face twice

when it looks at you.

The truth is

since you’re fond of the word

you never found a meaning big enough

to accommodate that Delphic python of an ego

that’s kept sloughing you like skin over the years.

You were always too big

for any chrysalis or cocoon you ever crawled into

and the greatest miracle of transformation

as far as you were concerned

is the shape you took in the womb

like the pearl of the moon

from a grain of dirt

at the bottom of a seascape.

What unified field theory could ever contain you

like some cosmic Houdini in chains and locks

twisting upside down over a snakepit of thoughts

trying to think your way out of the box

as if you were the ultimate escape-artist

and could pour the universe out of the universe?

Even space wasn’t enough of an embrace

to hold you

and now time’s given up on you as well.

Eleven dimensions were never enough

to take your measure.

You wanted to be the golden Buddha

that wormed its way into the heart

of an enlightened rose.

The blackhole in the heart of the galaxy.

The exception that became the rule.

But you never understood

the candle of life that burns within us all

sheds more than one petal

over the course of a lifetime

spent gazing at the flame

fixed in the seeming stillness

like a flower that blooms in fire

every two thousand years

you can’t look at with the same eyes twice.

You never understood that when you look at things

long enough with an open heart

and an unbounded mind

they estrange your eyes

into new ways of seeing.

They bring you into being

like a star turning in its own light

or dark jewels of anti-matter

to see what value

you might place on them

when the gem looks through its own eyes

into the radiance of life without an appraiser.

But the flaws in perfection

are the laws of a fool

or to secularize a mystic dictum

the same eyes by which you see them

are the eyes by which they see you.

Two dunces on the same stool.

One a myth of origin

that got lost in its own meaning

chasing its own tail to see where it begins

and the other the head of a reform school

for black matter

absentee without permission.

Two abnormalities

looking for reality

in the corners of the human condition

that baffles it with the clarity

of a hundred million books

giving private lap dances

in sheep-eyed sylvan nooks

for the savage wolf-popes

with shepherd’s crooks

whose greed is the meaning of prayer.

But the universe whispers itself

into its own ear like a secret

even it couldn’t keep to itself

and everything in existence

from starfish galaxy to solitary night bird

cherishs what they’ve heard

each in their own awareness

not of the word at the beginning of things

as if things were created out of choice

but of the voice behind it

that sings freely to each alone

in the silence of their solitude 

like a fountain-mouth of light

that lavishs the world on everyone

without intention or design

as if everyone were privvy to the same mind

and it were thinking out loud

in the picture-music of colours

you can only see

before the arising of signs.

That’s why it looks empty and dark

beyond the blazing billboards

of your highway paradigms.

And for someone like you

who prefers to jump into snakepits

to ask for directions

when the whole world is free-falling

without a map or parachute

through a bottomless abyss

without any sense of up or down

it must dwarf you the same as it does

a featherless bird breaking out of the egg

like a new universe into a nest of flying serpents.

Daring says feathers

and falling takes flight

because it’s in the nature of the abyss

to heal itself like wounded water

when it bathes in its own light

like light and stars

or snakes in the talons of eagles

the lowest of the low

raised up to the highest of the high

like a constellation

when they suddenly realize

in the annihilation of opposites

how dragons win their wings.

You ask fraudulent questions

and expect honest answers.

You try to define what you’re seeking

even before you look.

You stir the starmud in the mirror

to make things clearer

but you still end up looking at things

with dirty eyes.

And out of the darkness

like bats to burdock

blinded by that porchlight of a mind

you keep on all night

in a frenzy of insects

your thoughts are glued

like kites that flew into the powerlines

or flies into a spider-web

of sticky views

on how to keep it together

like a shepherd of clouds

trying to pasture the weather

in the starfields of a mountain sky.

You want to be the mystic arachnid

with fangs like the moon

and radiant elixirs for toxins

you can cook in a spoon

without flagging the fit

with a pennant of blood

that puts its cosmic armour on

and shouldering its lance like a syringe

tilts at the windmill of your arm

like the meaning of Don Quixote

lost like a peduncle in the ensuing phylum

of a species that went extinct

for refusing to adapt

to a reformed chaos theory of evolution

flintknapping the future fossils

of an improved Stone Age.

You keep thinking

if you roll enough rocks up a hill

like Sisyphus

you can build a fortress

or the Al Hambra

or the Taj Mahal

or even the Parthenon

but things just keep coming down on you

like an avalanche down from the world mountain

into the valley of the kings

where the mummies wait for their afterlives

under pyramids of quicksand.

Only a fool would spend a whole lifetime

trying to learn

what he already knows. 

In order to understand such a thing

one must be such a person.

Already being such a person

why bother to understand such a thing?

You’re trying to map

the stars in your genome

to find your constellation

like a long lost home

that walked out on you like a threshold

when you went a step too far

and added yourself like a big capital I

to the beginning of that tongue-tied alphabet

that made profound spelling-mistakes

in your amino acids

the moment you started

to proof-read your protein

for punctuation marks

that were too big-hearted.

Vicarious mind!

Faecal pile and pit.

Snake-eyed jewel

at the bottom of the shit

that schools the fools’ laughter

by ignoring it

you can keep on looking for a kissing-stone

in a hail of Leonid meteors

that keep knocking you out

like a dinosaur

that takes it on the lip

like a quick jab

from an under-rated mammal

or you can hoard water in your humps

like a camel on the moon

that moves through the cool of the night

in a caravan of shadows

trading with the desert

toward ancient oases of ice

that taste like the frozen tears

of the ballroom chandeliers

that gathered like stars

to take advantage of the night

by twisting your words

like a speech impediment

that whispers like the sea in her ears

at a dance

for club-footed glaciers.

But you can’t wriggle out of the universe

like an anaconda in thin-skinned panty-hose

that’s just swallowed itself all the way up to the nose

like a mystic condom

playing it safe

down on its knees

to give itself a cosmic blowjob

without contracting an unforgivable disease.

And there are dangerous cave-bears

that live at the back of your mouth

among the skulls of your ancient ancestors

and bones like bad omens

so you won’t find much shelter there

to keep the fire alive long enough

through the long night ahead

to finish the painting

you were working on

without saying a word

that would discolour your voice with a meaning

that won’t be discovered for years

long after your words have moved on without you

like the common language

of a migrant tribe

in the direction of their spears.

 

PATRICK WHITE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the universe pours itself into its own ear like a secret

everything is meant to keep

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEN THOUSAND VOICES IN MY HEAD

TEN THOUSAND VOICES IN MY HEAD

 

Ten thousand voices in my head

some living some dead

but I don’t let a single one of them

get in the way

of what’s trying to be said.

Let the whole orchard

break into a song or a symphony

and it’s still not worth listening to

compared to the wonder of a single note

that isn’t attuned to anything

but sits with me

like a guitar in the corner

that picks me up occasionally

and strings me out over the emptiness

like a suspension bridge

engineered by the spiders of music

all the way over to the far side of nowhere.

I’m that extra day in the calendar of a light-year

that shows up once every four years

to try and work things out

but it’s what I do in my spare time

when I’m not called upon to balance anything

that intrigues me.

It may be one planet

but it’s got an infinite number of axes

sticking through it like pins

through a voodoo doll

or sun swords in the back of a lunar bull

depending on what angle you’re looking at it from.

Remove yourself from things

like the universe expanding out of sight

and the curse is lifted

that stood in your light like eyes

that got in the way of your seeing.

Put your mind down once and awhile

like that embryo of a sword

in a womb of dark ore

you’re still trying to pull out of the stone

to be made king of the iron age.

Just for once let things begin with a big bang

that shocks you out of yourself

not a haemorage of rust

that pops like a wet paper bag

and gets sopped up by an old rag.

The play’s the thing

not the poster

and existence isn’t a method actor on tour.

Reality is an acquired taste

that serves the rapture before the wine

the meaning before the sign

and holds the dark mirror up

as an example to all

of how to see

before it’s smeared

like a spray-bombed wall

by every passing reflection.

Ten thousand voices in my head

and everything they say is true

whether I want to hear it or not.

And they all can carry a tune

better than I do

or follow a theme out to the end

like a lifeline on the palm of their hand

that’s always Niles longer than mine

that dies in the desert an oasis shy of Egypt.

I might work with words and facts

but they’re a grammar of birds

with a secret syntax

that takes me out of context

every time I try to join the conversation.

None of them speaks my wild mother tongue

this far from home

without a voice of my own

I can follow back to where I came from

like petrified footsteps in African stone.

But there isn’t a dialect of the silence

I haven’t mastered when I’m alone

letting the universe speak through me

like the wind in the leaves

as if I were a language

of flesh and blood and starmud

more verb than noun

more participle than gerund

no royal antecedent in the background

of the common pronoun

but I can look any part of speech in the eye

like the alpha of an indefinite article

that gets things rolling

like dice at the foot of the cross of the

wondering how many full-stops it’s going to take

not to come up snake-eyes.

Ten thousand voices in my head

some beautiful some wise

some playing dead in the sunrise

some raging like fists against the sky

and the face that turns away

from the broken window

like the full moon

some oracular clowns

and others just bad medicine.

But there’s one that doesn’t pray or bless or curse.

It doesn’t summon me like the dead to a seance

and even when a fire breaks out like a muse

it doesn’t panic like an emergency exit.

It can speak of life

without trying to second-guess it

and when words aren’t enough to say it

it’s suffered in silence long enough

listening to me shoot off my mouth

like a Friday night cowboy

trying to shoot out the stars like streetlamps

to find my own way home in the dark

to know how to play the blues

as if there were no one else around.

 

PATRICK WHITE 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE SINGULARITY

THE SINGULARITY

 

You were the singularity at the bottom of the blackhole

where all the light and life and love and money went.

You were an abyss that just couldn’t stand being empty.

You wanted to be a fat void in the midst of plenty.

You took your own body as the Standard Model of the Universe.

You were a death-maze that tried to make a living selling breadcrumbs.

You used to tell me

I could run from the blessing

but I could never escape the curse

of being an optimist for whom

things kept turning out for the worst.

You always did try to make an original point of the obvious

but your clarity was invariably cruel and cunning.

So I gave up arguing with you

and learned to grow orchids

that slept with secrets

in the shadow of that outhouse on the moon

you kept up like a diary of your changing moods.

Being the stupid one

I thought love had substance and content

the way thought and feeling had flesh and blood.

You thought it was a wardrobe of auroral attitudes

you could put on or take off as you wish

like smoke in a mirror

or a whisper of lingerie.

Sex with you was always a good day

and we had a lot of them

and that’s how I ended up staying for six years.

That and the compassion I felt

for the tears of rage you would shed

like rain on the lava of a wounded volcano

that would pop up on the west coast without warning

and bury both of us like Pompey and Herculaneum

trying to grow geraniums on its harassed slopes

like the hippies who grew pot

on Mt. Saint Helen’s

who aren’t selling anymore.

I always thought you gave your love to someone

and that’s what made it a gift

but you bestowed yours upon me

as if it were a right

I should be grateful to receive.

I was abolished from diplomatic lip-service

in the court of the mad queen

time and again

for things I didn’t mean

even in my native language

that were just too insane to believe.

But the body endures.

The mind copes.

And despair and ashes to me

given the tragic optimist I am

are full of high hopes

like spiritual loveletters

in earthbound envelopes.

And just as I did then

when at least I taught you

what not to look for in a man

I hope you’ve found the simulacrum

of the real life you were looking for

and it’s healed that crack in the mirror

that used to scar you like a black sail

on an empty horizon

waiting for cosmic news of the weather

that kept running you aground

like a widow on a beach

every time the tide came in like providence

and left you just out of reach of yourself

like a wedding bouquet

the bride tossed away over her shoulder

without looking back.

As for me

things have gotten worse for the better over the years.

Swimming through quicksand.

Swimming through stone.

Impersonal revelations of intimate stars.

Sometimes the moon shows me

the fossils of the ancient oracles

she’s pressed between the pages

of her darkest shales

like deep wounds

gashed in the matrix of space and time

that were the distant ancestors of us

who have survived the truth of their prophecies

like scars without a myth of origin.

I still end where I begin

like the black grammar of a white magician

answering for myself before my own inquisition

for heresies that were holy enough

to be condemned to the fire as proof

of their volatility.

Your blood was a watercolour.

Mine was an oil.

And red was the colour of pain.

I shook things off me

like water off the fur of a dog

that’s just come ashore

on the far side of the river. 

You ran in the rain

like a crazy ribbon

from the gifts you were given to give

and didn’t know how to survive.

But wanting to live

isn’t the same thing

as trying to stay alive

though they’re the two ends

of the same telescope.

When despair becomes

the orthodoxy of the age

and sinks like a heavyweight

who threw the fight like Atlantis

when it lost its sea-legs

the only true protest is hope

and the abandoned courage of a bubble

expanding like the universe

to break the surface

in a rapture of aquatic freedom

and disappear into the new medium

of an evolving atmosphere with wings.

And sometimes it’s hard

to remember the way things turned out

as if the certainties were brief weathervanes

of the good days that never came

and the doubts went on forever

looking for scapegoats they could blame

like the leftover smoke of an extinguished candleflame.

And though I might be slow

I know I’ve been thorough over the years

in wishing you love and life and laughter among friends.

So I’ve never summoned you by name

like a ghost to a seance of strangers

who think they know you better than I do

and make way too much of too many little things

that don’t matter anymore.

I haven’t swept the stars off my stairs in years.

And there are loveletters piled up in the mailbox

that say I’m in arrears

and when the windows cry

as they sometimes still do

looking out over the vastness of the view from here

at the solitary figures fading into the landscape of their homelessness

I try to cheer them up

like a reflecting telescope

by getting them to look at the bright side of things

by exchanging their lenses for mirrors

the way love does

new lamps for old

when everything that’s beautiful and lucid

disappears under a veil of rain  

like old eyes looking out at the world

through the new tears of a stranger’s pain

like a faithful death-wish that’s come true again.

 

PATRICK WHITE