“You know who I am…You’ve stared at the sun” — L. Cohen
First irresistibly drawn
that dark winter evening in ’72
by the canticle thrumming
in your deep bass
from the back parlor in somebody’s
long-ago-forgotten farmhouse
entrancing me down someone’s
hallway past somebody’s rooms
following slivers of your haunted lyric
the rise and fall of your haunting timbre
your imagery of saintly sins
your harlots and holy sisters—
your one-man Gregorian chant
spiraling like spun gold from
the ebony groove on the
turntable altar I found there
and before which I
lingered away the evening
shunning hosts and company
and etiquette... and there
some ethereal mystery lady
some Suzanne
fed me“tea and oranges...
all the way from China"
There is
hardwired within me
a harmonic homing device
a gland perhaps
that resonates
“like a drunk in some midnight choir”
In response to mystical frequencies
of the darker spiritual wavebands…
that compels me to imprint on them
(like the sunflower that “locks” on the sun)
and to follow as a disciple...
as an apostle—
I understand now why moths
consume themselves in flames:
if your voice is fire
“then I
I must
be wood”
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