Dancing like two becomes three (dimensions)
Painting that SIN(g)s color
Writing:
*—If anyone thinks
that I amn't divine
He'll get no free drinks
when I'm making the wine
but have to drink water
and wish it were plain
that I make when the wine
becomes water again.
He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running
forward to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like
fins or wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted:
— Goodbye, now, goodbye!
Write down all I said
And tell Tom, Dick and Harry
I rose from the dead.
What's bred in the bone
cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy...
Goodbye, now, goodbye! *
..............................................................
Crazy, crazy great
crazily met and yet wait
everything hovers like heat
shimmers on the hot summer
day (wish I could)
threshold of everything....
new, novel, novelty
Critical genius
old bumping new
on against again
wen|new
Catalogs of good (deemed mediocre)
bumped
up against those that never (review well)
{even now}
ideas from dialogues in cafes
in ateliers, in upstairs rooms
manifest that which
IS
but might never have been
but might never have been
IF
BUT -- bangety bang !
Will anything ever BE that NEW again.
How long had ideas brewed?
Since the dawn of time...
Let's see...........at night
Let's talk......long distance
how, let's use that light thing
What'll work?
For what...a fair, a carnival, a whore house,
or
A CITY .... OF LIGHTS
A CITY .... OF LIGHTS
Exposition.........we need lights...gas, then electric
Ben Franklin could let go of the kite...
Ol' Ben be shocked, ol' Ben be shocked
He'd be knocked, knocked,
knocked offa his feet
knockin' me out! (Wow!)
knocked offa his feet
knockin' me out! (Wow!)
Edison was figuring things on a farm
in Nova Scotia...................................
"can you hear me now"
(Leads to something new)
Oh there were a million things already in place
farm machinery, assembly lines, automobiles,
singer sewing
sewing sewingandthey were... sewing,
in Paris sewing, Coco sewing sewing fashions,
crazy fashions, skin-tight fashions, sexy fashions,
hair's a bobbing, skirts a risin', knees a knockin
"can you hear me now!"
(knockin' on heaven's door)
(knockin' on heaven's door)
Crazy!
Coco Chanel caught that crazy
Chaplin, Chaplin singing silent
trampin' crazy, trampin' crazy
That crazy crazy was PICTURES
moving moving PICTURES
TRAINS a choochooing into your seats...all a-screaming
Screaming and reading and reading not
just what happened, and who said what
and got into someone else's |
well, business but into his ohmygoodness
CRAZY thoughts (now that's a NOVEL)
and it was all novel...what! an AMERICAN girl
in a Paris book shop getting Joyce INto print
Black people moving from the States to Paris
IT was all happening!
Clothes, ragtime - meeting dance,
**Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM........the African rhythms
the Carribean currents
THEN I had religion,
THEN I had a vision.I could not turn
from their revel in derision **
freeing Josephine Baker and Isadora
(Scott Joplin dead but not forgotten)
...Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song **
Graceful melodies in tinkling syncopation
played background to the highest glamour
the world will ever know,
to the extreme inventions,
to the wildest thoughts
to artists with new actions
...in fact it felt like everything was NEW, crazy, COOL, and FOU!
all the rage ...in every sentence crazy fun fun fun.....
crazy fast fast fast
crazy smart smart smart
yet (don't forget it couldn't all be good)
Revolution..
turning...
[revolution in the air in Russia]...
REVOLUTION...(back in the USSR)
Kill the Czar and steal those dazzling Fabergé eggs!
That's so inventive, so crazy, such a way to find
a crazy
revolving
worldwide rocknrollin' high!
* (James Joyce. Ulysses
** (Vachel Lindsay, The Congo)
Exact quotes from both - The Congo rhythms and allusions used as
example of jazz roots.
example of jazz roots.
© Gay Reiser Cannon * All Rights Reserved
Oh, brilliant! All that crazy, wild, exciting, innovative jazz feel comes across strong here...I enjoyed the roller-coaster read.
ReplyDeleteoh gay, i love this...it is gorgeous....the word play alone makes me grin ear to ear....one of my fav parts is...
ReplyDeleteCritical
genius
old bumping new on against and again wen|new
Catalogs of good (deemed mediocre) bumped
up against never {and even still doesn't) exist and would
it
bangety bang BE ever be that NEW again.///ha, so cool and def a thought burner...its got a nice blend of craziness in it as well....would love to hear it performed...
My goodness, this poem took me on a journey. Something new around each twist and turn of the words... loved all of the 'characters' you worked into this poem, and the word play was delicious!
ReplyDeleteDear Gay,
ReplyDeleteI like the flow of the piece much but have a few questions - a lot of the opening seemed to me to be from Ulysses - several stanzas, but I couldn't tell then when you put the note how much of it was actually taken or imitated - the water to wine and back, etc. and of course the Stephen parts.
A lot of wonderful word play and great flow. The only "drafty" part is that you might want to think of shortening a little - if it were performed as Brian suggests I don't think you'd need to really --and I'm not sure you do even for reading!--but I think that it's harder to keep the reader's energy on page as opposed to performance. It is extremely performable, and great for reading too, even as is. But since you spoke of draft, that would be my only thought. A lot of fun. k.
whew, quite the ride. Yes, the stream of consciousness creativity of a jazz jam session comes through, popping around as each performer adds their bit and it all seems to flow together.
ReplyDeleteRollicking fun! Enjoyed every line of it. Ingenious and just 0on the crazy side of sane - which is just as I like it.
ReplyDeletewow gay...i'm just in awe...what a wonderful, crazy, deep and vital write...so modern, so grounded, so much music in it...love it...a lot
ReplyDeleteYou said it yourself: Crazy fun.
ReplyDeleteGreat energy
Gay, I had a religious experience reading it :)! I'm in awe and aesthetic bliss, spun wildly about and happy for the first time in a long time (completely irrelevant but true). It is the energy, the drive, the wild, the admixture of old and new, the parsing and the holding up, the devolution, evolution, and revolution smashed up. Fission and fusion, ART! You are the only person who can decide when the draft is no longer (though the idea of polish is sometimes one to throw out to) but imho it is exquisite, gorgeous, and alive.
ReplyDeleteoh my! this is an entire World of Poetry. brilliant and true to the task. I enjoyed this immensely!
ReplyDeleteThis is really something, Gay! Had to go through a few times to get the gist of it. Lots of efforts went into this apparently! Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteHank
Sorry to be so late, just life's burdens. Clever stuff. I experienced it as an impro for two voices riffing around a theme
ReplyDeleteyou definitely captured all that jazz, Gay!!! i love visual poetry and you laid yours out on a hot fast track that really carried me along as it gathered speed!
ReplyDelete"snap! snap! snap!" {my finger-snap applause for such a cool chick!}
♥
I came back for another read. This is so good and so layered I shall need a few more readings, I think to really appreciate it. The idea of mining Ulysses was inspired. It is such a rich resource and yet I doubt I would ever have thought of it. It works well throughout and - yes - it does resonate like jazz. A beautiful read that could keep me going for some time to come!
ReplyDeleteJazz replete, this piece is a dark, smokey room with a a low bass thumping. All senses are required to make it clear. I read it aloud.Not easy, but easy listening. Smart, clever, skilled write.
ReplyDeleteThis enticed me from the word go...or "Dancing" lol
ReplyDeleteExceptional piece! xox