"Well, You Need'n't"

The music is pouring out
as fluid as rivers
and willing as gravity
to take us back
to grass and humble graves.

Such
ash brings its flowers
and the seeds of noisy heavens.

Glow, sweet halo at your head! Glow!

That's the saddest drummer's-face,
making clowns of angels
and other would-be terrorists--
those who'd tear us from our bones,
leaving no more trace than tattoo ink
to tint our smoke.

And what's with
the trumpeter-in-chief
and all his vicious pointing?
What's he need'n't?

Blow, steel halo at your lips! Blow!

Like Ikkyu's tree,*
twist the air out of tune,
slipping free
enough to almost be
intent and maybe mode.

Is it
for the time we are out of joint
with?

Well,
it's just
what I need'n't.

Me? The corpse
that swings between
what is and isn't and
asks such
questions.


*Ikkyu's tree: In Kyoto there was a very famous pine tree called The Tortured Pine (Nana magari no matsu) because it was so twisted and bent around. Ikkyu put up a sign just in front of the tree, announcing: "I'll give gold to whoever can see this pine tree in a straight way". Everybody tried to figure out how such a twisted tree could be seen as straight. Some people thought that from some angle the tree could be seen as straight. They looked at it from low and high. They twisted their necks around to look at different angles. After some time, someone told Rennyo about the sign. Rennyo, without seeing the tree, said that he knew the answer and asked for the gold. Ikkyu said that on the reverse side of the board was written the exception: "This deal is not valid for Rennyo". When someone asked for the answer, Rennyo replied: "The pine is straight in that it is twisted."


by jerry gordon
12.3.5
Anaconda's "Well, You Need'n't" at Savannah

as often, i think of

as often, i think of
you at such times
of beauty and wonder,
at the sun reaching into a building
as far as its shadow,
at windows floating within
walls of glass and all
the play they intimate.

and then i sense
this is
enough
to make it all
okay
with itself.



for steve king
12.22.05
inspired by Endo Shuhei's Growtecture S
http://www.paramodern.com

The moon is up there,
cold and round,
abandoning me
to dreams of danger and belonging.

The silhouette of a crane
against the sky,
as still as dusk,
drowning in the drifting clouds.

What is there to say
into the phone I imagine
at your ear?

On what day of the week will I die?
What will be the last slip
of paper I watch burn?

You have new eyes.
I wish you flowers
and mornings of color.

Goodbye.



by jerry gordon
12.15.05

Strangers

I walk the city
tonight as quiet
as the Van Gogh shade
that touches your face
with its almost violet smoke.

If this sky were in mountains
dark enough to be
your blue-black coat of night,
we would not be
spelled out in chemical sums for emotions.

We would feel
with all that romantic hegemony.

From this far, I can see
your eyes looking through
the words you were never named,
through the danger of your parents
never meeting--
never weaving your Celtic nest of hair.

This is where we know
one another
as strangers passing
on opposite sides of a building.

How much of our belongings
are in each others' pockets?

If you listen at a granite wall,
the echo in all its grey
will be my whispering song.



by jerry gordon
12.3.5
for a Chika Yoshii painting entitled: Melissa