GHOST IN THE GONE REALMS

KirpalGordon

GHOST IN THEGONE REALMS

Obscure Publications· 2008

Copyright 2008 by Kirpal Gordon.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, including photo-copy, recording orany information storage and retrieval system, withoutpermission in writing from the copyright holder, except forquotes in reviews.

Cover image by James "Dusty" Pendleton. Photography byLaura Carrigan.

"Ghost in the Gone Realms" is the latest installation of theOP series, Jazz Tales. Watch out for the two intersectingnovellas, "Ganga Runs the Voodoo Down" and "Naked atLast in Her Own Skin," in one book.

Watch out for these jazz tunes as well, some of which willsoon be posted with musical accompaniment atwww.KirpaIG.com for free listening alongside Speak-Spake­Spoke, a jazz poetry CD, from Leaping Dog Media.

First Edition

OBSCURE PUBLICATIONSPaul Rosheim, Series Editor

307 River Street, Apt. 18Black River Falls, Wisconsin 54615

Watch Out for Obscure Publications

CONTENTS

Ghost in the Gone Realms - 1

For All We Know/The Curved World Turns Inside Out - 19

You Make Me Feel So Young/Jung - 20

So WhaURubiyat Melodic - 21

All Blues/Spirit Fuse - 23

01' Devil Moon/Stone Soul Cartoon - 24

Funk Underneath/Greasy's How I Got Here - 25

Ghost in the Gone Realms

If you're lost you can look and will find me

---Cyndi Lauper, "Time after Time"

"Can you take me to Ghost then, Doctor?""Put this lab coat on over your cocktail

dress.""Over the dress?""So no one asks questions, Ms. Jones.""Call me Norah.""Thank you. What else I can do?"Ganga-as-Norah paused to consider how

much to say."I don't know Miami very well, Vasant.

Would you be so kind as to help me find ajazz recording called Live from the SanFrancisco Jazz Festival: Elegu Grip and theBrothers Grip Play a Tribute to Duke &Strays?"

"I have that album in my collection."

"That's Ghost's first recording date withthem. "

"I did not realize he is one and the sameGhost."

"Yes. And that record is why I'm standinghere talking with you about him now."

"Then I will ask my sister to bring therecord with her on her way to work. Hershift starts soon. She will be quite pleasedto hear of my most auspicious meeting withyou. "

"The honor is all mine, Vasantji.""So let us go first to Mr. Ghost and set

things up for your private puja straight­away. "

It was a Miami Sunday morning, alreadyhot and humid before eight o'clock. GangaGhose had been up all night and now sat inthe hospital's private leu room staring atGhost. He was laying in the bed,unconscious, strapped to monitors andrespirators and IV drips. She fought backtears and thought back to the rest of theconvo she had with Doctor Vasant Jugdeesh,how he peeped her hole card when she triedto get over on him.

"Please, mem sahib, do not play with me!You are probably wanting Mr. Ghost'sclothing next. Okay, I sent down to theemergency room for that as well. Now youwant me to leave you in his room so you caninvoke a cure for his coma."

2

"Invoke a cure?""Although I am trained in Western

medicine, I am still Bengali, just like you.Do you not practice a siddhi for spiritualtransport of your audience via a lyricalinvocation or mantric incantation?"

"I don't know what you are talkingabout."

"I saw your first set last night up atDon't Tell Mama."

"Oh, that---""You became Lena Horne when you sang

'Stormy Weather.'""Thank you.""I do not mean it as a compliment, mem

sahib. ""Then let me begin by apologizing for

deceiving you, Doctor. It is an occupationalhazard of mine. My name is Ganga Ghose, andI am a professional impersonator."

"I knew you weren't Norah Jones.""So why did you play along, Doc?""Why did you lie to me, Ganga?""Because I'm confused.""About who you are?""Yes. I felt myself becoming Lena, too,

during that first set. That's pretty scary,and just for the record, it took a lot outof me. And New Year's Eve is a bitch of agig, I don't care how much money isinvolved, five hours was nuts and I waswiped way out. That's often when the change

3

you describe takes place, when my resistanceis low."

"So what happened?""Thanks to a tip from Ghost, I took a

chance at being myself on the last song ofthe last set. Now that's really and trulyscary. By that I mean that I had no moredisguises left, so I sang like I sing, notan impersonation of a jazz legend. I'venever done that before. We got so muchapplause Ghost came to the front of thebandstand. "

"So?""He's never moved from the piano seat

before! And then he kissed me and took a bowwith me, and he's never done any of thatbefore, either, you know, on stage with me."

"Ganga, come to the point.""This is what happens when I try to be

me, Doc: in the next instant his headintercepts a heavy champagne bottle flyingdown from the sky. It fell from one of thehotel balconies above the club, pierced thethin plastic roof and knocked him out. Werush here only to have you tell me you can'trevive him."

"Yes, but---""But the head butt, Doc. That friggin'

Moet bottle was aimed at me, whether byaccident or by design, you tell me what Idetermine and what is the karmic destinyalready writ on my brow."

"I don't know."

4

"Is that your phone ringing?""Go ahead, Ganga.""Then be me for a minute. I have

threatened the life of the only man I havereally ever loved, and so I'm having alittle trouble being me. I'd rather pretendI'm someone else."

"I understand," Vasant said and answeredhis cell phone. He spoke in a dialect ofBengali that was hard for Ganga to follow.

"My sister, Uma Devi," he told Ganga whenhe hung up.

No sooner had he put his phone away thenUma came through the door of the privateroom with one album and an old recordplayer. After introductions, Uma handedGanga the LP and apologized for not havingthe CD.

"Having the record's better. I've neverseen the liner notes. Thank you," Gangasaid.

Ghost's clothes came up from the ER.Vasant and Uma smiled, clasped their handsto their hearts, wished Ganga victory,assured her of privacy and left her alone.

Ganga studied the album cover and thoughtback to the first time she'd heard therecord. She had been studying classicalNorth Indian music at Benares HinduUniversity on a scholarship but finding itrestricting. Her greatest solace was late atnight, when the dorm was silent and everyone

5

was finally asleep. That's when her favoriteradio show came on, her dial's only jazzprogram, "San Francisco: Music Out of Time,Time Out of Mind."

It was a few hours after she had wept herway through the beautiful "Come Sunday"section of Elegu Grip and the Brothers GripSalute Duke & Strays that she experiencedher first encounter with the beyond. Lyingin bed, unable to sleep, she had been struckso deeply by the blends of sound the threesoloists achieved on alto sax, trombone andtrumpet and how they were prompted by therepeating, haunting rondo piano lines ofGhost underneath, opening up the heavens.

Moreover, the other-wordly melody hadbitten into Ganga and would not go away.Humming the chorus over and over silentlythroughout the night, she heard, just beforesunrise, the radio speak.

"Go ride the music," it said to her inthe dark.

She left India a few weeks later and didride the music. It took her to Mexico whereshe found her Ghost playing piano. And whohad Ghost turned out to be? Not just a loveror an arranger with a Strayhorn touch butthe very ancestral invitation of jazz itselfto weave her soul in second linesyncopation, twelve bar blues and flattedfifths.

Ghost brought all of that to hisaccompaniment. Maybe it was that New Orleans

6

thing, that the music came through him, notthe other way around. To Ghost the music mayhave been composed a century ago, but it wasreally being born new and now at this momentat this tempo at your ears.

Ganga loved that immediacy. She knew timewas the illusion responsible for our madnessand disgrace. Time sealed our fate asnumbered in days. Time birthed the fear ofdeath. Time sent us into the hysteria forsalvation and for sexual reproduction, thetwo oldest hustles of our sad species,selling lies about invisible beings andselling mother's v-area.

The whole truth, Ganga thought, lookingover at Ghost comatose on the bed below aheadboard of blinking lights and pulsingnumbers, was that our bodies decay every dayuntil we're dead and then they just decaysome more. But as for the consciousness ourbodies experience, it's already indwellingbefore we realize it and no doubt will go onin ways we're too limited to even considerwhile we insist we are these bodies.

Maybe that's where Ghost was now, someloka or bardo or limbo or disembodied placewe can't know much about while we're stillon this side of the veil. But thatindwelling place was where Ghost played fromevery day. You heard the song as somethingwithin you being called out.

Maybe she had been secretly hostile topiano players with a match-my-tempo vibe,

7

but with Ghost there was no macho bullshit.He matched her tempo, and she never draggedthe time. He was thrilled with her musicalgift, and with his love of playing inspiringher, she opened her wings and took flight.Then he hit the notes that called her towitness, that launched her to greatness,that allowed her to no longer be payingtribute to but to actually become the jazzdiva she was impersonating.

She certainly had her own trick bag ofcredible disguise, perfect pitch, defiantsexiness and witty mimicry to bring to theevening. And through the sheer fan joy ofcelebrating her favorite singers at theirmost outre, she connected to her audience'ssense of wonder, their willingness tosuspend disbelief. It was they who broughtthe firewood, she realized, but it was Ghostwho lit the flame.

She didn't know how he did it. He justknew what to do to bring the change in her.It was so spooky neither one of them wouldadmit to the event at first.

But that was awhile back. That was beforethey started making whoopee. Before hebrought her to the Big Easy to meet hisfamily. She figured the first stop, out ofrespect, might be his mother's house or hisolder brother's. Instead they went to thecity's oldest cemetery. Inside a mausoleummarked Wakefield, Ghost lit candles, pouredhis elders their shots of rum and told them

8

all about Ganga and what she'd done on stagewith what he called "the ghost notes" theyhad taught him to play.

She looked over at him now, and shewondered if he could hear or sense anythingof what was going on around him.

She had no idea. Nevertheless, she pouredtwo shots of rum from a flask in her purse.

"Hey, Ghost, here's a toast to yourhelping me figure out how to reach you."

She clinked his little cup and drank fromthe flask.

She put on Side One, a collection oflesser known gems from the Duke-Billy-Mercerbook, and studied the faded album cover forclues. Yes, it was Side Two she rememberedfrom that radio show, a suite of alternatingStrayhorn and Ellington tunes pulledtogether by Ghost's brilliant interplaybetween the tunes, uniting themes andplaying tributes to the two composers.

That was her first clue: all thearrangements on the live album were Ghost's.It was the arrangements and their superbexecution that had kept her awake all thoseyears ago. She remembered how, like Duke,Ghost's charts invited the soloists to bestexpress their personal style in an ensemblesetting.

The second clue was to discover thatGhost had written the liner notes. Sheglanced over them and recognized many Ghostwords and phrases, some with roots in New

9

Orleans, some like a punch line to a risquejoke. Like Prez or Mezz or Diz, Ghost let alively metaphor slip into his convoalongside a few nutty tidbits of jazz loreand signifyin' double talk. But as she readon, she de-coded the spiel and realizedGhost was narrating his own life storygrowing up in New Orleans.

The third clue was the arrangement of thewords on the back of the album cover. Allthe paragraphs were of a similar size, andshe wondered if the words might not be achorus to or commentary on the songs. Or amessage in a bottle.

In addition, there was something in thephotograph of the band she couldn't quitemake out. The longer Ganga studied it, themore she realized that on the club's wallbehind Ghost and the Brothers Grip wasdisplayed the cover of the original 1958album release of Black, Brown and Beige,which featured Mahalia Jackson's vocalpremiere of "Come Sunday." Below the titleof the album, Duke sat grandly as the FirstLady of Gospel stood to his right in a shortsleeved black dress, her left hand on hisshoulder.

As Ganga opened the shades and themorning sun streamed into the room, shewondered if this might be a clue or a blindalley. She knew one thing: she didn't needthe tuxedo Ghost had worn on the stand andthat the orderly brought up from the ER. She

10

slipped out of the room and walked over tothe nurses' station looking for a big-bonedgal likely to wear a dark dress to work.She read the name tags on the white uniformsand slipped into the locker room. She foundsomething in extra large and was addingpadding in no time.

Returning to Ghost's private rcu, shepulled her hair back and coiffed it so thatit resembled the wavy short-haired conkMahalia had favored. She then dug deep inher purse for her special features so thather face matched her new girth. She widenedher nose with putty, softened her eyes, putin brown contact lenses, highlighted andbrushed and buffed and smoothed her face soit looked rounder, gentler.

She played Side Two and sat on the bednext to Ghost, waiting for the music to leadher. The suite began with Sweet Pea'shaunted "Daydream." Ghost opened with ashort quote from Johnny Hodges that EleguGrip then worked into his alto solo. Ghostquoted Shorty Baker and off blew Baby Gripon trumpet, likewise for Junior Grip on'bone as Ghost quoted Lawrence Brown. Afterthe drummer and bass traded fours, Ghostswooped back in and took his solo.

Just as she had suspected, the linernotes spoken aloud fit exactly into hispiano solo. As he came to his last two Asections, she read aloud.

11

In a daydream's scene I gleaned newyear's eve's crash head-on, a pavane gone tobroke down done, my song hauled upriver toDead's Town where nothin' floats back from.Ganga pulled the stylus up and paused themusic. New Year's Eve crash head-on! Thatwasn't a clue. That was what had actuallyhappened last night. And what else wasDead's Town but a comatose state wherenothing floats back from?

Had Ghost seen this all those years back?She was amazed to find that the words notonly wrapped around the melody, but he hadmanaged to play one note for one syllable,beat for beat, all the way through the firstsentence and the first eight bars. Gangabrooded on this for quite awhile. Wasn'tthis how he got me to open into the outerlimits, she asked herself, when we would get"locked in" before a scat attack?

She put the needle down and spoke alongwith his solo.

A chronicle of an ironical hex foretold,there me was, Jim, Mickey Finned & GoneWithin, compin' to squawkin' tenor sax lineswalkin' the bar's war crimes, talkin'funkified fried but in the end tied less toa distressed mess than a feisty mess line,rhymin' tin pan corn to shine mellow & fineon hard nods, large You Send Me mends now nolonger maskin' their bouts with the bends,amen.

12

This was her real Ghost now for sure. Hewas a chronicle of an ironical hex foretoldfor he lived in a world of vibes and spellsand charms, Micky Finns and bouts with thebends and more than a few bad gigs. Althoughhe often joked with her about beingunnecessary when certain tenor men blewnoisy bullshit over the changes, his "goneupriver" narrative also reflected storieshis family had told her of Buddy Bolden,Storyville's best cornet and trumpet player.Ghost's great-grandmother said Bolden, likePops, had encyclopedic ears, natural graceand chops out to here. But unlike Satch,Buddy lost his mind over a woman, got sentup the Mississippi to the bug house and wasnever heard from again.

Not quite baskin' in clover, my numb jawkept askin', ~When gig over," thrashin' downstash-busted's crash course in pain &achin', moanin' almighty cash elastic inrollin' stone-slammin' hospital zones,slippin' C notes gin-soaked in Sellin' Hope,how hauled afloat we owned a lone flight'sdelight of low notes bowed but so slightly.Up nightly: a cell of terror, a cancer ward,a game of solitary, goon squads in gloomydoomsday's gray & blue bars. Let's call it ahumble station or dare I mention obituarycomplication & why won't nursie give me mymedication?

Although this was typical Ghost talk andjive ramble, Ganga was convinced his nutty

13

commentary on "Daydream" was leaving herclues of some kind. In order to find therosetta stone, however, she just had to keepher mind open.

The solo now slid, Ellington style, intoa party-crazed, strut-happy, after-hours"Mood Indigo" with Ghost again quotingRabbit and Elegu taking it into a sultry,long-toned stratosphere. Ghost then quotedJunior and Baby Grips into their take-offs.He finally jumped in to recapitulate themesand whirl together rhythm bits and toneclusters and sound streams to give thisblues a back-from-the-dead elegance. AsGhost began the two concluding choruses tohis piano solo, Ganga read aloud the words.

Cobalt-lichen gravestones lined in sevenscalled me outta the Down Below to tool amood indigo in mad flow 'cross ceruleanheavens. Before an encore we paused & thespeak-easy's emcee interceded me immediatelysayin', "Because the notes once neededplayin' the muscled & hustled think they gotit made in the shade openin' for Hades' HitParade, while the best of the restless knowhow the home-grown gets disowned ondarkening roads home." But from thedarkening road Grip now showed, chock fullof laughter, his double-mask faced a funeralmarch north & south the wild parade whatcome after. So it was he who brought me backfrom the cross-haired despair of a truth-or­dare disaster.

14

Speak-easy's emcee? Hades Hit Parade?Double-masked? Once again, before she couldshake the words out to even begin aninterpretation, Ghost moved into anothersong, this time with a Strayhorn flair. Outof the last fading chord of "Mood Indigo,"he trinkled and tickled the keys until hehad teased out the structure to"Bloodcount," Stray's eerie death-bedfarewell.

Ghost built the arrangement around theblends the three brothers achieved. Whenthey were through telling their stories, hedove the piano deep into those odd,tragicomic blue runs that were Strayhorn'sgift to the tradition.

As Ghost re-told the theme, Ganga readalong to his last choruses.

Torn from sundown Grip stood with theyounger Grips, Baby & Junior, hangin' on thecorner with their horns, dressed to meet BigDaddy Midnight whom they held in scorn &

rarely saw. That old story. But then Gripopened the way with a wave of his hand as ifto say: "Ghost, we gotta get you on thebandstand, man."

Hell no, I didn't know the score. But ashe handed me the charts, my sear-suckeredsuit surfed in seepage of sweat ocean­wrenched deeply, the music but stung meonce, all too rock salt & steeply. Need mesay stage fright stacked me up indiscreetly96 feet above the club on Great Jones Street

15

for in the old days we played it breakneck &reckless, hard hopped in eye drops.

The words, so Ghost-like, poured out ofher mouth and into the shape of the melodyso effortlessly. Although she was sure thisbit to be autobiographical, she realizedGhost might also be telling the story behindStrayhorn's tenure as Ellington's alter-ego.

She read the next chorus aloud.But Grip had grown up, gave it space, let

it breathe. Opened with a bang that shot theplace in blue flame. Cookin' hard schnappsin pentecost & better without the butter,brother, but could I solo, Napoleon, onlyeveryone wan ted to know so. Maybe a badnote's but what hangs up unfulfilled, yet Iwondered could I conjure still a fountain ofdissonance in my signature style that couldnot be discounted? Was I dead yet? Thetension mounted.

Once again, Ghost shifted gears, fadingout of the intravenous realms of"Bloodcount." However, this time Grip jumpedin on alto sax, bending the gospel openingof "Come Sunday" in the best bent-note styleof Johnny Hodges. After the brothers Griptore the tune apart and put it backtogether, Ghost took his solo, reprising theentire suite, and ending with these lastfour A sections that Ganga spoke.

Grip led us in a gospel I-ray. Let Iunlock a secret sky where limbo's childrencome out to play sayin', UHosts of white

16

doves, hidden within love's most blood­effusin', Rosacrucian hour, make theParaclete complete when ten fingers run rubyflowers through a song brook's bower now &at the hour Saturday night comes yawnin'Sunday mornin'."

Grip failed me not. He & the BrothersGrip picked me up on the bridge, carried meout of encores into a nearby Chelsea doorwaywhere we faced a vestibule west, & east abestial crowd delicious to rip us in two.Rather than ring tenants for entrance, Gripused his head; glass flew. Lamenting thebasement but facing a shotgun sawed off,into sawdust we now descended.

At this dead end, of course, word onSweet Pea Street reached us: Big DaddyMidnight was APB seekin' Grip & his groupout. While he grabbed his horse, I sank intolove's labor lost, a world now withoutmeaning: had my boss & bandleader come allthe way upriver, past the realm of everylament to the deepest pit in Dead's Townshiponly to have me sit in for the evening?

Heart split in conflict about buyin' thehype, into darkness I yearned to slip, butGrip returned cash in hand to gripe, ~Don't

you get it, Ghost? I need you coast tocoast, not to sing it or say it, wing it orpray it but once." Rain on my own paradelike a dense dunce? Having escaped themasquerade of my own death the music wouldlive on in I-&-I, & I-&-I would play it.

17

Ganga now recalled that this was themoment that had broken her into tears allthose years ago. The band members began tohum the tune, just like Mahalia had done onDuke's record. However, when Ganga openedher lungs and joined the humming, out camethe voice of Mahalia Jackson. She hummed twochoruses and when the record ended, wordsGanga did not even know came through her ina capella.

Lilies of the valley, they neither toilnor spin, and flowers bloom in spring andbirds will sing. Up from dawn to sunset menwork hard all the day. Come Sunday, ho, comeSunday, that's the day.

Later he would tell her the meaning ofthe "neither toil nor spin" reference. Latershe would tell him how all the lights andbells and whistles looming above himsuddenly went off at the same time followedby the arrival of a cadre of doctors andnurses, but right now Ghost opened his eyesand just looked out at Ganga.

He was glad to be back.

18

For All We Know/The Curved WorldTurns Inside Out

For all we know the sound of love slipsdown a hungry earlobe's hollow where sirenssing of the shapely sea & a sailor standslashed to the mast of his odyssey. For allwe know birthing tubular wings he may wonderwhy the woman he's just kissed goodbyeremains within him. Though she waits to thelast minute and holds out her hand, when herepairs to a deck chair she's there beforehim saying see how every sound bends roundour ear for even elk love-calling disappearinto twilight's hide-out: for all we knowcoitus turns the curved world inside out.

For all we know erupting volcanoes come &go, fountains & mountains in oppositedirection overflow, how a mention ofgravity's intention falls us off the edge ofthe world to meet the feeling we've beenhere for thousands of years. For all we knowa man is really a butterfly & butterfliesseek nectar in a wood whose silent body ofsound surrounds every intrusion, sewing oureardrums into open lesions where every holein space fills in with space. For all weknow he tastes the grace, the mysterylinchpin: the whole spinnin' world isfeminine.

19

You Make Me Feel So Young/Jung

You make me feel so Jung, so psychicallyspun, re-done, atoned & at one. Just when Idream that it's the end again you stealaround the bend with that no panic the deckchair's organic, a Titanic glockenspiel,amen, for what a deal it is to be a spinnin'wheel-in-sentience bringin' a sense ofelegance to floating free, the blessing's inthe present tense & while I'm seein' bleakcreepin' up on trees with a new reward-&­regret ye's planetary trend to tend towardhomicide, your aside is to tell me they'remass producing test tube babies?

You make feel so Jung, you make me ringthose ancestral rungs, sneakin' a wink froma lunch pail, you revel in renewal, singin'unglued a hoodoo prophecy revealed, deal in'the real gnosis lovers keep company with insundown's repeal of sounds we run clicheinto the ground all day replenished. Youmensch us like a magus, graze us in thegrass, engage us with laughing gas & throw aMolotov in Carl Gustav's cocktail, you greetour Grail quests with cries of hail, Icarus,don't jump, but neither be denied & inbetween hiccups your insight is to hit uswith there are UFOs in the sky?

20

So WhatlRubiyat Melodic

So what: a full moon croons its crackpottune while old bones moan their whatnotalone. On loan from the Unknown we'rerollin' home by the light of a silverytongue hot to trot in polyglot lungs thatgot its own. So What: we've seen centuriesof souls leapin' through matter's mad hatterto gravity's pitter patter when a bitterbattered ceremony round a hangin' tree's thedata. Comin' through slaughter bangin'borders yields a black & blue disorder. Asgoes causes for wars of peace, danglin' feetweep six deep in the Big Sleep. Reapin'Mother Morgue's McLock-up, we be creepin'through eye-sockets just to drop the wholecrock of it, torn free from misery-born'switherin' woe-is-me song.

So what: we with sapphire chops blew coolcobalt geodes for we longed to be born tohalt time, stopped dead on a dime in Dorianmode. Burnin' ops popped from a harder be­bop we copped hopped-up rides three deepwith horn scales quakin' glimmer-tonedrhythm in a gumbo simmerin'---all to glide aviper's wing & prayer into worlds out thereunknown where there's nowhere to go but inhow the goin' & how the goin' gets goin' somoodily, Moorishly & rubiyat melodic mavin'rain'S runoff to a garden of Persianquadrangles where So What's two notes amen a

21

cadence that aligns the three worlds. Onlythen would we see within a hummingbird'swhirl indwelled the wings of the roarin'waterfall.

22

All Blues/Spirit Fuse

Hey spirit fuse, come through etheralindigo hues, Andalusian deja-vu where mutedlong tones rule. A melody's octave changecontains the clue opening you to the manitouwho, emerging from a moon once-in-a-blue­moon blue, spews the night with portals thatflash a dash of the 01' softshoe to enterthe love loka a yenta calls All Blues.

Hey spirit realms with ancient helms evenAdam cannot fathom, come through azure sky &Caribbean sea, lavender's scent amidstturquoise pleats in lapis lazuli, petals'peals of teal wheeled in aquamarine's blue­green & all that jazz in topaz for lusciousPushpema, bloom queen in blue-icehydrangea's stranger shade a hair-do callsAll Blues.

23

01' Devil Moon/Stone Soul Cartoon

It's that 01' devil moon shining throughthis stone-soul cartoon, crespucular light'sgold Nordic rune gleaned extra wide for thehand glide. Soon to be told not to intrudeon nude devil's food moonbeams float withthe tide, what's a free ride when the sinewave's the shot & the end's scripted inbefore we begin, the quest to become outwonby the joy just to be, worse plots willhappen at sea when we're deep in the bends &then we're at it again, space-timecontinuum, where you open we are: glow wormswink in a jar, & we'd be better by far thana nova gettin' over like a Range Rover orwould you rather be a star?

It's that tides moon the earth, tearsroll down a mirth unrehearsed when mad makesmerry for the many immersed & untrained incelebrating the unrestrained, who can sayloss is gain when ebb & flow shine within,as in ring ring ring, as in: Sing SingSing's one sing more than what roars OtherShore as in tweedle-dee, senor's name on thedoor, meets tweedle-dumb, a dime-droppin'bum from up the Hudson, Jersey side saysbadda-bing, Empire side says how 'boutOssining, or would you rather be state'sevidence collected from the prevalence ofyour malevolent bling-bling?

24

Funk Underneath/Greasy's How I Got Here

Walk me in my walk four counts ofancestors. Talk me in my talk three countsof the best is yet to infect ya's. Stalk mein a corn stalk two counts of disastermakers who can break ya before breakfast soI'm steadfast at long last: caulkin' whatcan be caulked on the one count so make minea double & neat, & as for the music, shapethose notes sweetly but get the funkunderneath.

Greasy's how I got here & I don't justdisappear when the broken axis runsfriction's diction to a fiction made fromfears for the road already goes to Abraxasthe whole way here, so ya got the blues,well we can mend that, bend back notes &sack cities in the sinkin' of a woman's winkfor the night is alive with a thousand eyes,but the secret of my treat is steeped in thefunk underneath.

Spell it a hex or a groovin' miracle butthe blues hit me like a movin' vehicle, atruck-straight up train wreck spectacle, acall-&-answer canticle liftin' me from theedge of the grind I was strapped to til Ifeel my way blindly into the wheel's centerpoint still where nothin' turns thoughworlds burn in chunks all-of-a-piececomplete with the funk underneath.

25

This edition is limited to 60 copies.

This is number---

OBSCURE

PUBLICATIONS