Prologomena to a Poetics for Michael McClure

Seedings & Other Poems

Poet man walks between dreamsHe is alive, he is breathing freelythru a soft tube like a hookah.Ashes fall around him as he walkssinging above them.Oh how greenthe sun is where it marksthe ocean.Feathers drift atop the hillsdown which the poet mankeeps walking, walkinga step ahead of what he fears,of what he loves.

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Why has the poet failed us?Why have we waited, waited for the word to come again?Why did we remember what the name meansonly to now forget it?If the poetfs name is god how dark the day ishow heavy the burden is he carries with him.All poets are jews, said Tsvetayeva.The god of the jews is jewish, said a jew.It was white around him & his voicewas heavy,like a poetfs voice in winter ,old & heavy,crackling,remembering frozen oceans in a summer clime,how contrary he felthow harsh the suffering was in him,let it gotThe poet is dreaming about a poet& calls out.Soon he will have forgotten who he is.

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Speak to the poetfs mother ,she is dead now.So many years ago she left her fatherfs clime.His father too.The tale of wandering is still untold,untrue. The tale of who you are,the tale of where the poem can take us,of where it stops& where the voice stops.The poem is an argument with death.The poem is priceless.Those who are brought into the poem can never leave it.In a silver tux the poet in the poem by Lorcawalks down the hall to greet the poetfs bride.The poet sees her breasts shine in the mirror .Apples as white as boobs,says Lorca.He is fed the milk of paradise,the dream of every poet manof every poet bride.The band plays upthe day unstops & rushes out to greetanother night

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Is the black poetblack?And is the creation of his hands & throata black creation?Yes, says the poet manwho wears three rings,the poet man who seeks the precious light,passes the day beside a broken doorno one can enter. Hold it shut,the god cries & the jew rolls overin his endless sleep.Gods like little wheels glide past himdown the mountain road where cats livein a cemetery guarded by his fatherfs star ,a poet & a bride entangled in the grass,his hands are blackhis eyes the whitest white& rimmed with scarlet.Hear the drumbeat,heart.The blacks have landed on the western shorethe long lost past of poetry revives.

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Our fingers fail us.

Then tear them off! the poet criesnot for the first time.The dead are too often seen filling our streets,who hasnft seen them?A tremor across the lower body,always the image of a horsefs head& sandflies.A womanfs breast & honey.She in whose mouth the murderers stuffed gravelwho will no longer speak.The poet is the only witness to that death,writes every lineas though the only witness.