A ghost precedes us
A shadow follows us
Each time we stop
We fall – Jim Morrison
Rimbaud not rock
tuned him to vibrations
beyond circus stage
by ridicule of easy adulation
by solitary audience
with opium dens of the word
Wrote vanity of the senses
from inside humbucker
circuits of heavenly arcana
Donned shaman’s headdress
to break the night order
to test its avian wilderness
Decades later his Blake door swings
on Andalusian trade winds
of flamenco & blues-bent strings
of lucid inescapable rhythms
stolen from Stevens’ blackbirds
that his Accipiter vanquished
of galleon sailor melody raised up
of once insouciant blackbirds
gone limp in his talons
of medicine men on highways bled
into realms of light
trapped in endless night
itinerant baritone ecstasy
oeuvre of dualist rant
pop frame become canto
Bird of prey
Bird of prey
Flying high
Flying high
Am I going to die
Bird of prey
Bird of prey
Flying high
Flying high
Take me on your flight
Stuck her with knives
& returned often to scenes
no imagist survives
as with equally eerie poise
his obedient seductress
repaid him with deadly joy
-- the rotational delusion
of darkest night
of perfectible mimicry
now & then swooping down
to peck out my ears
& silence what remains of him
30 April 2012