Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices
WORD OF MOUTH
TEMPLE
- My house is my temple,
- I am a mover and shaker
- With the best of intentions.
- Daily I genuflect
- Within my body,
- Its trembling walls.
- They are
- Made in China!
- The walls are. So,
- Help me God, are
- All the artifacts
- Contained therein.
- For a mere tithe,
- And a pittance,
- These most favored
- Nation's utensils
- And silk cloths
- Service our temples.
- Tables and chairs,
- Cutlery, curtains,
- Bottles, lampshades,
- Ceiling fan, extension
- Cord, all, even the china,
- Is made in China.
- I must be also
- Made in China,
- To a certain extent.
- My genetic makeup
- Reads like a geneology
- Of Eurasian despots.
- Spanning the silk route,
- They consummate
- Their illicit love
- On horseback,
- Between flying golden
- Arrows and the sound
- Of their stirrups
- Sweeping the steppe
- Over fluctuating borders.
- Fields of crushed poppies
- Scattered haphazardly
- In their sublime wake.
- Eight centuries later
- Reveal me with my
- Mongolian birthmark,
- Three centimeters
- To the left of the dimple
- Over my right buttock,
- It beckons the wayward
- Viking hero gone slightly
- Berserk beside a slow brackish
- River rising above marshes
- And the smell of herring
- Dripping from our mouths.
HOPPING TRAINS IN MONTANA
- for Mike Steele
- First of all it should be the summer
- Harvest grain en route, precociously.
- I am wearing my army surplus
- Lumber boots made somewhere in
- Oregon. For logging, they have
- Steel toes and freeze at 40 below.
- You are a cowboy from Bozeman,
- Or so you say. Home from Nam
- With Uncle Sam now
- Paying for your pacific
- Education. Lazily we wade
- In the Blackfoot River
- And study the trajectory
- Of rainbow trout on the run.
- Speaking of the Waste Land,
- Of course, and how the
- Women come and go, you
- Recite Prufrock from memory.
- Hoarfrost and the sound
- Made by a timeless river
- Rendered eternal already
- By the bard of mill towns
- And bars, of Duwamish head
- And the various degrees of grey.
- All form the background
- Of a late summer day
- Glossy with anticipation.
- Our Wranglers are well worn:
- Provenance - USA, circa '72.
- A Mexican poncho covers the rest.
- We are in uniform, incredulous
- Already that we ever could be
- History, which seems to belong
- To ancient legionnaires
- Making war in some desert,
- Always some dusty desert.
- Meanwhile we hear it from way
- Over yonder, to and fro
- Across the continental divide.
- A faint roll of thunder grumbling,
- Plainward in its distress.
- My heart full of rhyme chirps
- To avoid tripping over
- "The herald of my rest."
- You roll one and say,
- "And indeed there will be time..."
- As if we were merely scattering
- The seeds of providence.
- Oh the glamour of it all,
- Being twice removed
- From east and west,
- Fate continentally contained.
- A deck of cards cut randomly
- In three careful piles.
- To lose one's horse?
- To wander Miller or Celine-like
- In Paris, clueless and deranged?
- Or throw a seine net into
- The tepid sea? Inquire
- Within. Better to go
- Have a roll in the hay,
- Any day. But then what?
- When you can barely change
- A flat tire or flip a lumberjack?
- What good is Eliot in the pen-
- Ultimate post modern world?
- You never asked, I never
- Volunteered. We merely knew
- It was both good enough
- And too good to be true.
- This is how long it takes
- For one long empty cargo train
- To come slowly barreling down
- Through canyons and valleys
- Of the not quite Waste Land.
- Were the brakemen all union,
- I wondered? But how slow
- Can it go? Never too slow
- For hopping though.
- I can still see the wagon
- Through a Wyeth perspective.
- Unkempt and in disrepair,
- The tracks slick with creosote
- You throw your guitar in
- And jump first, all agility.
- Jack be nimble, jack be quick.
- Warily, I follow suit.
- Behind us the icy peaks
- Around Squaw's Tit sparkle
- In the afternoon sun.
- The upcoming topography
- Unfolds as if in some slow
- Reel to reel. There is nothing
- Like keeping pace with the rhythm
- Of an old cargo train ahead of schedule.
- You take your time withdrawing.
- Paying homage to the yodeling cowboy,
- You sing, T for Texas, T for Tennessee,
- And T for Tania, the gal who made a fool out of thee.
- Decades later I latch on,
- Gripping this memory more fiercely
- Than I did the handle on the train.
- Not really out of sentiment or
- Nostalgia, no. My eyes as dry
- As the scorched prairie.
- I barely have any
- Regrets. My personae
- Have multiplied in Sibyl-like
- Chronicles of disbelief.
- With one foot in the Julian
- Calendar and the other guess where,
- I refrain from turning to salt.
- One eye focused inward,
- The second scanning the horizon,
- I am merely waiting
- For the appropriate moment
- To hop another train.
WORD OF MOUTH
- Could it be the same
- Word once made
- Flesh?
- Or have I finally
- Lost my mind?
- In the funhouse now.
- The surround sound
- Of synaesthesia,
- All synapses run amok.
- The smell of kittens being born,
- Smug, wet, and warm.
- Nuzzling the teats, is a sign
- From God. He resides
- Avuncular
- Over the House of Atreus.
- While the Templars
- Unite again, questionable
- In their brotherhood,
- With swords of Damascus
- Swishing dangerously
- At friend and foe.
- Meanwhile the born white
- Buffalo continues to turn
- All necessary colors.
- Like some latter-day Cassandra
- I often quote in vain
- From The Quiet American,
- As I get exchanged
- Like some spoil of war,
- I read the writing on the wall.
- I utter whatever Word
- Chooses to bleed through me,
- Becoming the blueprint
- For the final unmaking,
- Paving the way for Rome
- And other Empires.
- Word of mouth has it,
- I have made the bed I lie in.
- Whoever said
- The Te Deum
- Is tedious,
- Should be hanged to rest.
- Let the stalkers decipher my
- Genetic code in cuneiform.
- And the dead bury the dead.
- Let the physicists
- Measure the ratio
- To quintessence,
- All agreed finally
- On the big bang
- And that the universe
- Is expanding. How
- Many Words would it take
- To fill it now,
- The nymphomaniac galaxy?
- That entropic, stellar womb turned
- Inside out and still expanding.
- -- 7 January 2001, Kiev, Ukraine