The Lead Singer at the Metropole
"No knowledge rightly understood
can deprive us of the wealth of flowing"
To burn something.
To have it not exist anymore.
To watch it disappear
into wood and later
to watch the wood
disappear.
At last
to be free of it.
I go dancing with the Lead Singer
at the Metropole.
"Where are all you people going
and why aren't you there yet?"
Hello.
This is enigma calling.
What's my name?
"The blackboard is mysterious.
I think maybe something will
be there tonight"
Hello, this is enigma.
"Everything in the universe
is conscious, and has a life
of its own."
What's my name?
The Lead Singer at the Metropole
doesn't have a girlfriend.
I walk in by myself. He sings to me.
We leave together.
Walking on my muscles
he pulls my arms
back
almost to touching.
I remember
when they used to be
wings.
White ethereal birds
flying out from the hip
becoming bone
becoming
I write the perfect seductive song
and give it to the Lead Singer at the Metropole.
He asks me to go dancing.
He stops smoking.
"Twenty years without a piano
is long enough, I think."
"If you mix up people's blood
you can kill them."
"I'm trying to re-establish
my relationship with my bird so she
doesn't bite me so much. I tried
to surround her in blue light.
She said, "Green!"
Enigma?
"I did some painting today
which is what I do when I want
to express myself but don't
want to think."
Enigma?
I tell the Lead Singer at the Metropole
"You have a wonderful voice,
and I love the sexiness of your songs."
I feel centered when I speak to him.
He doesn't have a girlfriend.
We were not able to touch
one another.
The feeling shattered
all over the room
like bits of light.
Gestures of prairie.
Desert language.
Death
is the Tarot Card.
Something dies.
Something else is born.
Z. Budapest:
"Note the dawn in the image.
It is a two-way door:
It is a positive card.
Wimmin should not fear it."
Between the worlds
a crack opens
large enough
to send the rest of the light
through
I give the Lead Singer at the Metropole
a copy of my book. I write:
"For you, in celebration."
I'm afraid that he won't like it.
Walking on my muscles
they become large
become terrain
in a burning desert.
The sun is going down.
A white bird
flies away from behind
a cactus.
The bird is made of light.
Take 1:
I dig under the earth.
I find
a golden spade, a ruby, and a
skeleton.
Take 2:
I dig under the earth.
I find a watch
with a blank face,
the face surrounded by light,
the hands saying
almost two.
Two?
Upanishads:
"There is no room
for fear
until there is two."
I meet the Lead Singer at the Metropole
on 24th Street. He is delighted
to see me. We walk away together.
"It was so peculiar. There was
a ridge on the edge of the prairie.
It was like sitting on the edge
of an asteroid."
I found myself walking up a dirt path somewhere in the country.
I was walking side by side with a crow, who was taking me to a geyser. She
was gay and light-hearted. I was my woodsprite self. When we reached the
top of the hill, she gave me a pair of red leather dancing shoes. I wrapped
the ribbons around my ankles and jumped into a pool of cool water.
I was very sunny. On the other side of the hill, there were
people all around, talking in a foreign language, saying things that didn't
make sense. They were standing in pairs under eucalyptus trees.
The crows began dancing and jumping in the air. I was dancing
too, but couldn't keep up with her. I became frustrated, and we said
goodbye. The last I remember of her, she was smiling down at me from a
tremendous leap she had made in the air.
I walk along these trees
and I think of Charles Ives,
the end of the symphony
the voices of a thousand souls.
I am wearing a bright yellow dress
and hat with a flowing brim.
I see him in the distance. We
flow into each other's arms and dance
together. We swirl indefinitely.
His hands are a combination
of honeysuckle and light rain.
We become weather.
We become galaxies.
"Now when I feel that
feeling of anticipation,
I move in the direction of
expansiveness inside myself."
She said:
"What you want is what you get
so imagine something nice."
I give the Lead Singer at the Metropole
The perfect new wave poem.
I meet him on his own territory.
— Diane Frank
