book vii - the catalunyan pieces (to scribd 07-16-09)

8/14/2019 Book VII - The Catalunyan Pieces (to Scribd 07-16-09)

1/35

(BOOK VII FROM WLM : DISJECTI MEMBRA POETAE)

WLM : THE CATALUNYAN PIECES

by

Warren L. McClure

(Last Revised 07-15-09)


2/35

02

WLM : CATALUNYAN PIECES SUMMER 1992

Thank goodness my culture has not set me to work in a laboratoryobserving the wiles of anthropoid ratsbut has equipped me with fetishes charms and spells

Thank goodness my culture has not set me to work in a grinding millthat would make Quixotes of us allbut has sent me tilting against the stars

Thank goodness my culture has not set me to work in a position of powerwhich would leave me so little time for jousting with millsbut has lent me a wand to master the magic of sounds

Thank goodness my culture has not set me to work as a merchant of notewith a wicked balance and a deceitful bag of weightsbut a bag of tricks that I might work my will with words

Thank goodness my culture has not set me to work as a philosopherequipped with fetishes charms and spellsa wicked wand and a deceitful bag of tricksthat would make Quixotes of us all

Thank goodness my culture has not set me to workbut has left me free to be a poet

wlm04-01-06


3/35

03

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR WLM : CATALUNYAN PIECES

(BOOK VII FROM WLM : DISJECTI MEMBRA POETAE)01. Title Page02. Preface Poem (Thank goodness my culture has not set me to work in a laboratory)03. Table of Contents04. Owing to a habit I formed in tender years05. Moments of utter folly these that come and go06. As the Sun comes up over Miracle Bay and the lights go out on the Rambla07. Could one but peer into the workings of / the Old Enlightenment's Clockwork Universe08. Were Hell half as hot as it's purported to be09. It's on days like these I rather abhor my innocence10. The misty view from the Tower of Learning swelters under the summer Sun11. I seem to have lost the battle with Otiosity12. My wary mind tonight13. Oh to what lengths will a man go14. Sketches in the cloisters of the mansions of my mind15. Once again to return to that Realm where ever and anon one becomes as a child16. My mind drifts from one contrariety to another these droll days Aurellius17. Suffused with delusions of grandeur one hopes never to attain18. Eastward Dawn fiddles with the First Principles of Light19. I suppose it is a laudable thing to wish to advance the cause of Reason20. Tonight I am a gargoyle on a cornice of a crumbling edifice in Old Catalon21. My thoughts this morning are as rambunctious as a riot of butterflies22. The first freight of the evening has just rumbled by on its way to Barcelona23. Poised on the doorstep of a Herculean effort24. All thru the night Hesiod I've bounced along inside my Palanquin of Dreams25. Here on the beach where I'm wont to lie26. Leering into the Past with a jaundiced eye27. Fellow Poets / It was so windy yesterday on the Beach at Rabassada28. Sniffing the political windbag these gruesome days29. Scanty recollections these that may provide one with / the rags to make a rug30. Treacherous waters these over which we row31. O Scholars32. Nominally I am an honest man33. This windy day34. Was it only a dream

35. End Page


4/35

04


Owing to a habit I formed in tender yearsI find myself again making oceans out of sand

My Muse Pandora washed up on the shore nearbyremoves her clothes

combs the cockles out of the hair on her monsdecides her saint is growing too irritable

swims away on a sea serpent with a rose up its nosewhile the Moon like a child that can't be found at hide-and-seek

plays peek-a-boo thru the matriarchal cloudsand a bevy of rhymes ripples wryfully by

chuckling to themselves over a cuttlefish's bonesLife's like a pair of old jeans here with a broken fly

open in form and personal in contentshifty loose elusive insecure in need of a belt

So why then when ready-made cinctures lieso close at hand

does one care to take up paper and pen againtry to create once more on his own new poems

more quizzical word-playsabout freedom and justice and human rights

for the lips of ignoble actors to reciteinto the ear of an audience

of ignoble clownslines that

like a blast out of the bluemight cause some few others' minds to unwind

send a bolt thru their brains like a primal screamas they walk over the melodious waves you have made

in the Sands of Time in your ragged jeanswith their modesty too exposed to all the vagaries

of the Wind and the TideWhy try to create new closures for the mind

in rhythm and rhymewhen the World's already so full of belts for those

such as your own and others'-likethat have come apart at the seams

and have flies that won't close

wlm11-30-06


5/35

05


Moments of utter folly these that come and golike waves upon the beachActivities that pursue no end

that leave no tracelike castles built in sand

Works whose purposes escape us likethe feeble echoes from beyond

the wide Mediterranean'shorizon

Sounds we would interpret but can't quitebecause they're not expressed in words

nor antonymic formslike Dark and Light

Things one can hear in the inner earthat can't be seen nor touched but which

our minds insistexist

We wait

The Wind may bring them nearTime may mute the noise they drown in

The Tide may turn the Seaa cloud may pass so we may catch

their simulations likereflections in a mirror

wlm04-01-06


6/35

06


As the Sun comes up over Miracle Bayand the lights go out on the Rambla

as the turtle in its leafy carapace struggles to get outthru a hole in a pocket of the Pasta hole thru which fortunes are lost without our ever knowing it

I breach the walls overlooking the Sea before Tarragona

Perhaps I will be rebuked for writing poetry this early in the morningbefore the Sun has had a chance to fully arrive

but the Event moves right along toward its inevitable closeeven tho some thief has stolen the silverware

for the feast of words that's about to commence

Thus having entered Tarragona by a devious routebefore the Hours are on the rise

bearing my injured Rectitude from another statein a bun-basket full of poetic prowessaccompanied by my self-pitying Harp

with names and objects just beginning to convergeand shadows becoming things

adverse conditions that forbid me to ascribe come into playfreckle the bay-scape below me like fishing boats

coming in from the Sea before a storm breaksconnoting aspects hitherto unthinkablefor we fishers after freedom and honor and justice among menswashbuckling about in our hob-nailed seven-league boots

our hearts full of hubris and self-righteousnessaspects like the irony in the up yours God made when he died

or the chagrin on the arrogant face of the Sphinxwhen Oedipus solved its puerile riddle

aspects that cause one's pucker-strings to puckerthat cause one to pause to reconsiderthe worth of whatever one's life is all about

to pinch the air to smell the roses

For who knows how the air will smell when it's been pinched

or why when the rose is pluckedthe bush still pricks

wlm04-01-06


7/35

07


Could one but peer into the workings ofthe Old Enlightenment's Clockwork Universe

one would findit all in shambles now

all run downwith God no longer round to wind it

Thru the ruins one's thoughts might muse in pessimistic modelike euphoristic gazelles on stilts followed by

daffodils of sounds mounted on crowdsof euphemistic elephantstrampling over the rhododendrons

For isn't it a tiny step from serendipity topurposiveness

for we gentlemen scholars in our sudsogling from the Promenade

the Sea of Life below beyondwhile attending to the ruffles on our skirtsnot yet having learned to wonder much

as thoCreation having provided us with necks

did not mean for usto be hanged

Yet how otherwise is one to expound the claimsof the Spirits of the Earth and Life itself against

the Spirits of Fire and Deathwithout sticking out one's neck

without pouring Water on the counterpartswithout improvising airy bridges across the abysmal rims

of bottomless abyssessupported on the nether ends by

aphoristic ad hoc hypotheses like God in Heaven and Hell on Earthand on the nigh

by euphoristic gazelles on stilts and daffodils of soundsand crowds of euphemistic elephants

trampling over the rhododendrons

wlm04-01-06


8/35

08

WLM: CATALUNYAN PIECES SUMMER 1992

Were Hell half as hot as it's purported to beit would have a devil of a time topping

the Rabassada Beach on an August daywith the air hanging-ten over a sultry Mediterranean Sea

with the clouds like bare-breasted mothers their naked children shouldtaking their shadows and secluding them in more sacred places and

leaving to me and ten-thousand other insane masochiststhe profane sands of the Beach to bask on

where our hides might be basted by salty watersand our brains baked by a blistering Sun

Yet were the Devil twice as bold as he's purported to behe'd have one hell of a time dragging me away

from this Rabassada Beach where I persistin being burnt to a crisp by an uncaring Sun

while being bashed to bits by waves forsaken by shadowswhile being trampled over by paddle-ball players by the ten-thousands

with the hearts' desires of little children still sucking at breastwith feet big as clouds and heads full of hot sand

wlm04-01-06


9/35

09


It's on days like these I rather abhor my innocencethe life of a man who is free

who has no great stake in the Hereafterno stars left at which to shake a stick

no desire to see the far side of the Moon once moreall probably due to some nihilistic streak

some astute teacher placed in my brain in my nonageFor I seem to have this hermetic web in my head

from which even the Spider fleeslike an enormous alien text taking up otherwise useful space

too heavy for my Psyche to liftThe sombre hue of my life thus

confutes the lowering skies that cloud over the SunBut most disturbing of all is when Ignorance strikeswhen what-I-think-I-know is called into question

as when I find myself confronted byflagrant contradictions

smelling like roses with tits like Venus de Miloand bellowing like bulls in estrus

Formless suspicions then suddenly become as brittle as white-hot stonesThe intimate passions of a Self in heat which had thought it had seen the Light

are squelched in an indeterminate vat of cold wet Night and explodeOr so it seems to one who would follow a way of life for which

the web in his headis out of joint

wlm11-30-06


10/35

10


The misty view from the Tower of Learning swelters under the summer Sun this morningBlisters rise on the brain no pen may prick

The Mediterranean lies mute as before a stormwaiting like an old coquette to reveal her charms

Watching her I feel like a sailor whose ship has just come infrom a trip around the Horn

who can't remember whenhe last saw a woman

For even tho she's past her primethe Mediterranean still harbors beneath her skirtsbaubles best kept hidden from ogling eyes

secrets not meant to be beheld by sailors of shallow watersor by uninitiates

secrets she would discover only to Poets and Loverswho've been around the Horn

And mysteries impenetrable even to the Wise

who've never sailed Life's deeper seas

wlm04-01-06


11/35

11


I seem to have lost the battle with Otiositycomposing poesies has not won out over the obfuscations that daunt an idle mind

The Ship of Dreams I would board and conquerhas dropped over the far horizon of the Mediterranean

her sails wind-full her flag still flyingon the way to Tunisia

I seem to be caught in an in-betweenwhere nothing's happening

where there's no something to happenlike on the crest of an event horizon where nothing's moving

as tho my mind were suffering thrua reversal of hierarchies

Baffled disillusionedI would turn even the fragmentary and fortuitous into poetry

were it to drift by

wlm04-01-06


12/35

12


My wary mind tonightas if empowered by some dire celestial arrangementavoids all the obvious routes between the stars

leaps from galaxy to galaxy as my pen leaps from word to wordtries to roll back the curtains from Time's tightly-held secretswith a baroque condescensionOver Egypt a pale Moon rises on a silver plinth

for the day when is close enough at handto force painful choices

to foreordain another season of dissociation betweenmy Will and the Zeitgeist

A wet night this at half-past ninethe latest chapter in a diffident lifesurrounded by cupidity bafflingly unsophisticated

before which it is hard to keep a straight faceOr to keep the tongue from a twist

Oddly I feel as if a part of my Ownwere clandestinely burrowing within against me

a niggling malaise on a subversive missionhere in my fancy where words lead strange lives

where a book of holy writ can kill witand a fairy tale burgeon forthin an Immaculate Conception

wlm04-01-06


13/35

13


Oh to what lengths will a man goto establish himself

beside a balmy seaso lukewarm waves may pound loose sand

up his bumand the Sun scorch his hide

to the bone

Oh to what lengths will a woman goto establish herself

on the beach of that balmy seaas Queen of Tits and what's more

that her buns are better by farthan any mans wandering eyes

have ever seen before

Oh to what lengths will lovers goon that balmy beach to prove

their love is like no other lovethat's ever been lived beforeto what stupendous lengths

only Heaven knowsand poets who hide

behind their beards

wlm04-01-06


14/35

14


Sketches in the cloisters of the mansions of my mindmetaphors stored away in old mahogany armoires

scenes that flash by when you open up the drawersas when one dreams

My mind seems to be such an open-ended series of disconnectionsstored away in hardwood boxes

mobile montages made up of pasts and futures set in motionevery time I lift a lid

mobiles that make me feel as if my blood were being spun in centrifugesmixed montages of good and evil that keep me up both day and night

wondering which I am

Outside the mansions of my mindthe landscape's all decked out in monochromes

Autocratic Time in his tattered coat of orange and greenstands by with hour-glass running

reaping-hook at handready for the swoop that takes the grain

Were this a dreamsurely I could have found a more pleasant scene for the season

and dressed in dearer colorscobalt cadmium madder lake Pompeian blue

Yet my mind like a multitude of closed-lidded boxes in a drawerin some centuries old mahogany armoire

in a cloister in a dreary mansionappears early on to have become anchored in such heavy furniture

that now it seems nearly as immovable as whenthat dark wood in which it holds the boxes

rested in Honduran forests

For even in this late hour with its many rooms of ample sizethe mansions of my mind loom out of place

They seem to suffer from an embarrassment of riches

And those dearer colors that I so delight inby my thoughtless abuse of metaphorglaze over the windows

on which I rely for light

Yet I cannot overcome my yearning forrich tapestries of words and sumptuous cushions

voluptuous woods and intricate boxesI can't content myself with simpler forms

witty nocturnes in cerulean bluesnatty symphonies in red ochres

but must persist in using muddled metaphors whichthe subtle sense within belies

even tho my thoughts fall with a thud on wooden tabletslike weighty trees in sultry jungle forests might

even tho they shake the earth for miles about as they tumbleand can only be drawn out of the woods at night

by teams of twenty horsesbecause of the flies

wlm 04-01-06


15/35


16/35

16


My mind drifts from one contrariety to another these droll days Aurelliusonly on rare occasions now does it find itself gazing steadfastly out

beyond the event horizon of its own drear gutTho day be gone I still have night

Tho compassed roundby murderous Christi and homophagous Philanthropae

my body nods my will still singspenitential hymns last heard in Babylon

spouts expiatory prayers learned in Perse at Calydonwhile the inscrutable laws of the Universe crumble into crumbs

as Heraclitian fragments of life go flying bytumbling into ruins

rushed on by the bad breathof the latest dying god

Even the matrices of all things peculiar to This or Thatseem to have come apart at the seams

their rows and columns saunter thru the Groves of Learningrambling about in groups of threes and fives

and often sevenstho sometimes droves of eights and twelves

and occasionally elevensMy Muse arrives

brings more baleful newsthat Science cannot unravel the enigma of

the Universemuch less the Self

nor unwind one tic of the clock that's tocednor keep the rot from the brain-bone longStill the hearts of the three swallows in

my magic staffflutter like the swift sure wings they were once so wont to drive

thru the evening skies after summer mothsAnd now and then I still succumb to Awe

that holy delight of the untrammeled soulfelt most often by those of unpolished simple wit

so seldom by the Wise

Yet how idyllic this my situation here in my birthday suitmy body half-asleep my brain half-deadwhere ideas like Sarmatians fierce meet heart head on

leave the nape hairs standing on the back of the neckand electric chills tingling up the spine

wlm04-01-06


17/35

17


Suffused with delusions of grandeur one hopes never to attainon the edge of that illimitable Ocean absurdity reflectsit seems hardly fair to doubt one's own discontinuities Goethe

But as if by design the absence of facts gives the truth awayfor matters too obscure for statistical analysis or operational description

conjure forth this marvelous inanityto will what one wants and pen it to a pageBut wait

the Ensemble of Serial Relationships roars overhead like a thunder-clapLike a virgin unexpectedly seized by the realization of her true vocation

my Muse gives multiple birth to multiple similesOut of those sublimated semiotical proclivities that lie between her thighsproud words desirous of procuring their place in the sun arise

turn the Ensemble of Creative Relationships inside outlike a wet umbrella on a windy dayseemingly incoherent verbosities of little momenttho much extolled

that induce metaphysical impoverishments into the common reader's cantthat engender confusions of incalculable effect in the minds of the sage

that muddle completely the wits of foolsthat occur every time some poetaster's muse crosses her legs rustles her skirts

that were it not for the thunder and rain the Sturm and Drangwould engulf even those of us who give a damn about Poetry

in the Bathos of the Anticlimacticevery time a child fallsevery time an arrow flies

wlm04-01-06


18/35

18


Eastward Dawn fiddles with the Four Principles of Lightlike the High Priestess of Isis with the faggots for her altar's fire

Over to the right a puling wind breaks open the surfmotivates cavities in stones to murmurOut over the Ocean a seabird shrieks

a hymn of delight for the gift of morningsoars out of sight into the Mists of Unknowing

My mind awed by thiswanders back and forth thru Space-Time

pauses for a moment at a place in Humankind's infancybefore Sounds became names for things and Science took their measure

a place where Silence maunders mournfully pondering her hurt feelingswhere the neme for Awe is the echo of the surf pounding

and that for Joya new day dawning

wlm04-01-06


19/35

19


I suppose its a laudable thing to wish to advance the cause of Reasonbut offhand right now

I can't think of one good reason whySo much empty talk from our Goethes Socrateses Kantians

the only function of which is to supportan easy-going self-satisfying arrogancein those of an intellectual bent who too

in these their own narrow times and placesare prisoners of the Horizonthe same Horizon that limits fools and poets and charlatans

and you my Perspicacious Auditorand me

Yet how excruciatingly difficult it is to be humbleto putter about quotidian tasks that must be donewhen once you've sensed the Universe of Wisdom

out Therebeyond the Boundaries

when once you've imagined yourself to beOne of the Truly Wise

Yet how can one be sure

Like a vagary in a closing sentencein an ode to pomp and circumstances

this cries out for expositiontitillates the brain and stirs the mind to contemplationcauses the mouth to gape and murmur wistful sighs

lets the Angst inside you trickle out

Oh how you'd like to close that sentence outeven if only by some chance bit of luck or intuitionsome incontrovertible sign from Heaven even

that would show the World that you are Oneof the Truly Wise

even something silly like the happy end resultto that fumbling experiment you once dreamed upwith a fulcrum and a beam of lightand accomplished in your nonage all on your ownin a moment of freedom terror and delight

that tilted the Moon just a bit your waywithout the World ever knowing it

something that would let you knowat least in your own heartthat you are right about yourself

that you are truly One of the Truly Wise

And you would happily do that sophomoric experiment

over and over againif you could only remember where you stood

on that lugubrious day

wlm04-01-06


20/35

20


Tonight I am a gargoyle on a cornice of a crumbling edifice in Old Catalonan edifice with flying buttresses and soaring arches

with spires that once connected Heaven and Earthand a spiraling staircase leading down to Hell

I overlook a cobbled street no wider than a bierthat twists and turns and circles round

The stones with which it's paved are made of flesh and boneThey burn like a Ring of Fire

I was not always a gargoyle with my bum stuck thus to a crumbling corniceFor I began as a sanctimonious self-appointed Guardian of

the Sacred Vessels Withinthat hold the Ancient Verities

But once anointed with the hairy oils of myth miseducation and downright liesand having been poked and prodded by the Disparities into rhyming

I found myself wandering sanctimoniously down this Crooked Wayan uptight upright Human Being tho injudicious where

I probed examined measured to a fare-thee-well describedin my Own Poetic Fashion

things as they wererather than what they seemed

Much to my chagrinfrom these brown studies I've had to conclude

things will most assuredly go steadily onwardfrom bad to worse for Man

Better to be a gargoyle with its bum stuck to a crumbling cornice

Yet strangely I am happy whyPerhaps it's because of this massive structure of the Human Mind that looms behind me

that my Gothic Behind's stuck tothis mouldering edifice with its secret chambers

its spiraling staircasesits whimsical dispassages

that add unaccountable menace and surprise

not to mention insuperable suspensionto this tremor-prone volcano zone that is Existencethis Ring of Fire that's Life

wlm01-20-09


21/35

21


My thoughts this morning are as rambunctious as a riot of butterfliesfluttering over an open pissoir

as patternless as fallen needles would be under an old pine treeafter a buffet of night-wind and rain

Words mewl in their sleep in unfathomable ululationsLike the rays of the rising Sun beneath the morning mistthey sparkle intermittently on the outskirts of Soundas when the Sun once high up in the Sky

will glint off the billowy froths of the Sea beyondand the flakes of fools gold in the sands of the Rabassada Beach below

for the Mediterranean does not roar on awakening like the Greater Seasbut echoes the turtle moaning on the bough

So while Dawn pecks thru its shell of hazeflusters about in its wistful nest of dreams

I bustle about to wake up the Seas wordsgrab them while they're still half asleep before their eyes are open

before they can grow feathers and wing themselves away

Later on in the day perhapsI shall wrap the ones Ive caught

in neat cachets of rhythm and rhymelike a water spiderroll them gently over the ripples in my mindthe lands and grooves of my tonguewear away their jagged edges till

as the billows of the Mediterranean roll the pebbles of the seaover the troughs and shallows along the shore

they too become smooth and round

Oh how the magic potion of this Mediterranean morninghas made me want to copulate frenetically

with every sweet sound I seefor I sense the galloping hoof beats of the heat-of-the-daycoming on quicklyand a plethora of harsher words

However in this moment of ecstasy all things pass lightly byeven the Seas words

in cavalcades of non sequiturslike the puffs of breeze that dissipate the morning mist away

and like the legions of other subtle happeningsthat have come and gone before

they disappear into thatGreat-Sea-of-Events-That-Occur-Only-Once

that exists far beyond these Mediterranean shoresin the minds of Prophets and Poets

wlm04-01-06


22/35

22


The first freight of the evening has just rumbled by on its way to Barcelonacutting in two the view from my rooftop here on the Anterman

high above the Beach at Rabassadaand the wind-calmed waters of the Mediterranean beyondThe tracks run just below the edge of the Ancient World and the Seas horizon

parallel to that World and the edge of the roof Im perched onthree giant rungs of the Ladder to Oblivion transcending

that Incomprehensible Design we are all part of

Earlier onon the other side of the tracks

in the sandwere the footprints of a child running

going on and on into the Distanceseemingly with no idea of predestinationevery step like a new step that had never before been taken

And here I am Poor Poet pen in hand paper willingevery bone in my body aching

every synapse in my brain longing wanting waitingto point out some new way astonishingly original

Yet I too have no desire to be party tosome Larger Design

I would rather my works were likethe thoughts behind the footprints of that child

running along the Rabassada Beachunique

going nowherejust mine

wlm11-30-06


23/35

23


Poised on the doorstep of a Herculean effortto cleanse the twaddle from the Augean Stables of Poetry

fashioning the paddle for the canoe I know I'll needto ride out the River of Feces I know I'll unleash

I would discover to you for your amazement and amusementmy Astute Acolytes

a riddle no less curious and obscene than Absolute Truth itselfdiscover to your incredulous minds beliefs of the Pseudo-Wiseas ridiculous as the desires of neophyteswho would undergo an askesisfor which they have not been initiated

who would disclose things even the Sage dare not knowand dispel mists impenetrable to human eyeswho would detour from the Path one must take

to reach the bottom ofthe Abyss of Knowledge where Wisdom lies

who abhor those mysterious ways of Analogy and Meterthose who would overpower Euterpe with prosaic anekdotaand the quotidian hagiographies of common sinnersand promise to fulfill Poetrys promise with the Ways of the Heart

those who cannot pronounce much less understand the formulaethat would bring the spells they might inadvertently cause

to a close

I would discover that riddle to youmy Astute Acolytesbut I won'tfor the River risesand I haven't finished my paddleand I can't find my boat

wlm04-01-06


24/35

24


All thru the night Hesiod I've bounced along inside my Palanquin of Dreamsthru labyrinths lined with rows of old imaginative Oaks

trying to fish a fly out of my inkwellNow at dawn I've sent my eunuchs forth into those Woods to look for Stones

I can hear them scuttling about from bush to bush like tortoisesrummaging thru the muck and mire with their terrible tiger paws

ripping apart umbrages where quiddities like quarks turn intocontrarieties

and unities into quirksFor thus the Imaginative functions in me

It's the only way I knowto hurry along

the creative process to a closeBut enough of this talk of Oak and Stone Hesiod

Its no mere happenstance that I've summoned you here this mornback from your sticking place in Hades

back into the Sublimefor I need your amiable assistance

in the deepest most essential senseto help me fish this fly out of my inkwell

so I can impale iton the point of my pen

and be done withthis poem

wlm04-01-06


25/35

25


Here on the beach where Im wont to liemy Love and my Muse Mnemosyne beside

we three soaking up sand beneatha multi-colored umbrellaed Sky

with Neptunes Nymphs sauntering byshaking the Seas spume from

their auburned breastssplattering the margins of my august wits

rolling ages of pages off my thighsas the Mediterraneans waves roll Historys legendsoff the Beachinto the Keep of the Deep for keeps

Were Paradise enow Omar a cupId turn it up without a scowl and rest content

to wend my way into Oblivion thus with only thissardonic smile upon my lips

and the remembrance of my Loves last kissnot caring one draught more to quench my thirst

from the fetid Well of Knowledgenor from Wealth

another grubbypennys-worth

Nor everlasting lifeNor caring to leave in the shifting Sands of Fame

one footprint moreor less

wlm04-01-06


26/35

26


Fellow Poets

The Wind was so strong yesterday on the beach at Rabassadait tore pages out of my notebook and worked the Mediterranean into a frenzyBut today the Sea is as calm as a herd of goatsgrazing some serene meadow high up on the slopes of Mount Parnassus

Fellow Poets

The Wind speaks differently to those of us who are like the Seawho know when to listenWe Children of the Universe who otherwise have no predilections

Fellow Poets

For others the Wind whistles by like an express train to Barcelonathe superficial glances of the uninitiated glaring from its windowstheir lives knit thru and thru by an Intimate Coherenceof which only the few of us

Fellow Poets

possess an inkling

wlm04-01-06


27/35


28/35

28


Sniffing the political windbag these gruesome dayscan impart a profound unpremeditatable feeling of imminent disaster

as one who would adventure out might well have experiencedwhile traveling thru a foreign country where diarrhea is endemic

without a roll of toilet paper

And it is indeed a rash person who would travel thusor a fool who cannot foresee the dangers

So let us approach these matters at a snail's pacesluggards that we are

explaining away adverse facts as scientists do poetryas clouds reflected by the surface of the Sea

when there's no storm in sightor as peripatetic illusions that will last only as long as light

For we would not want to tantalize those infants terriblessuffused with desires that strain the leash to be released

desires like murder and concupiscenceinfants terribles who have at beck and call deep-seated blind mean forces

like their priests and poetsto make their wills come true

And as any journey more than a day must be madesomewhat in darkness

let us wait till night to accomplish these adventuresespecially those sordid adventures where nothing is not without its odor

So as on those trips abroad where diarrhea is endemiclet us drape our words as we would swords

in intricate symbols and delectatious allegoriesand not forget to take alongan extra roll of toilet paper for that ignoble night

when we find ourselves again back homelocked in our own drear water-closets

with a rampant case of mental shitsfrom trying to lord it over others

wlm01-22-09


29/35

29


Scanty recollections these that may provide one withthe rags to make a rug

that may augment one's understanding ofthe will to fly

intermittent childhood reminiscences that keep turning upin circumambulant circumstances

giving birth to unexpected metaphorsfathered by dark unintelligible emotive powers

inaccessible to the intellectpowers that when used often result in those of us who are poets

going forth to the ends of the Eartharriving unable to bear our own names

Such powers become more pressing by the hourfor the pen daily becomes more weighty than the sword

Nor would I care to speculate on the cause that underliesthese unconscionable adventures out on which

we decadent scholars should keep our mouths shut tightour errant thoughts to ourselves

and those selves tucked away in ivory towers without windows doors

I would be happy to leave the matter thusin this assuredly opaque statewere it not that I need a window for my rug to exit byso I may sail out over the unbeaten pathwaysof Impercipience

For I would arrive at some new place strange and unusualtho all my powers belie

But perhaps I've said enough alreadyto explain why this will most likely never come to pass

why my rug won't fly

wlm04-01-06


30/35


31/35

31


O Scholars

as we embark this auspicious day on yet another sordid study of mankindlet us hitch up our skirts so our linens won't drag in the Past's dirty watersnor let us sing Songs of Diffidence to the Indifferent Godstill we are arrived at that translucent pool where transcendence disappearsand our minds have become once again as transparent as Gypsies'

O Scholars

let us not sing Songs of Diffidence againtill we are come to that enchanted land irrelevant to all save poetswhere fraudulent experiences such as Force and Cleverness peter outinto well-formed strings of word essences of maximal importthere where the first glimmerings of what will be must emergethru those outrageous diamond like facets of Oughtnessin which the scenes of our Pasts' most vaunted accomplishmentsare flashed back on us like from so many false jewelsso all can see what could have been otherwisehad we really been wise

O Scholars

let us not sing Songs of Diffidence to the Indifferent Godsnor mingle our thoughts in congratulatory eulogiestill the scene in our minds changeslest we find ourselves still in the Realm of the Self-Righteouswhere the curtain never closes

wlm04-01-06


32/35

32


Nominally I am an honest man living the life of a responsible citizenmy heart possessed tho of all the cant equipage and tricks of the poet and thief

For I take great delight in the little I take for grantedmy Pride my Vanity my Passion for DeceitI often encounter these personified while walking brusquely down long hallslined with purple and glassprancing like Princes of Peace on their way to Armageddonwho would lay waste to all Outward AppearancesYet at other timeson another level of perception

I find myself bolting thru doors without hingesaltering my psyche to become what others wanthankering to the squeaky sounds of cultural screws turningthru the Dark Ore beneath my feetjust below the surface of the pit in which my mind standslike Herculesup to its navel in cultural crapseeking there for what little I might unitea word a phrase an off-rhyme perhapsthat could possibly beworked into a novel thought uniquenever imagined before

My thoughts move from this Pit to the Sky-Sea abovewhere the Wind gathers in the last rays of the Daytakes them by handfuls twists them into mares' tails

before it begins to drive the Chariot of the Sunthru the Netherworld of Night

The ensanguined World closes like a mahogany boxinside which no languid line no fault no potent impulse lingers

only the persecuting odor of decay and a hint of lingering doubt

The Train of Night bears away my Tlinglit coffin of thoughts

The iron towers of the City of Fire beyondstand out stark hard abrupt sharp like Deco Artlike apocryphal figures steeped in dread

Am I to be one with those small weak-willed men of faithwhose only claim to fame is someone else's dreamwho bear witness merely to what is crumbling of its own discordOr shall I resist rebel destroy

like a Prince of Armageddontear hinges from doors

drapes from wallsshatter glass

The Earth that sleeps beneath my timorous feet

trembles as tho deep within itin the Old Molten Ores that acquiesce just below the crust

a terribly wicked Godis about to wake

wlm04-01-06


33/35

33


This windy day I find myself on a knoll by the Seawith Evening slipping quietly away along the Beach at Rabassada

like a woman's shadowmysterious enigmatic surcharged with symbolic intent

In my inimitable navet I try to unclothe her with words

Evening slips by like a woman's shadowhere where I sit beside these troubled Watershere where I await the spreading ripples of the inevitablewith only a suspicion of light in the sky

Evening slips by like a woman's shadowalong the Beachturnstakes the old Roman road narrow and desolateback into Tarragona

passes silently out of sight

How imperceptibly Night approaches

Evening slips by like a woman's shadowcloses the Iron Gatebetween the two Stone GodsDay and Night

places the covers over the cages of her birdsunleashes her dogsfondles her cats

wlm04-01-06


34/35

34


Was it only a dreamthat summer in Spain

you and I hand in handwalking thru ruins of Empires of Old

building our own

Was it only a dreamwalking along the sands of the Mediterranean

you and I holding handsliving our lives as we would wish them to be

Was it only a dreamthat I was King of Catalon

walking the ramparts of a towering castleand you were there beside me my Queen

holding my hand

Was it only a dreamthat you and I hand in hand

danced with giantsand drummed out the Devil

while the dwarves looked on

Was it only a dreamthe doves in the bowerthe sweeps whisking by

Did this all really happenthat summer in Spain

in the young days of our loveOr was it only a dream

in the afternoon of our lives

wlm

04-01-06


35/35

35

WLM : CATALUNYAN PIECES

book vii - the catalunyan pieces (to scribd 07-16-09)

Documents