What was song?
Recombinant
is the Word shot
down to earth,
lovely changeling
close to hand,
like an ink
brush or a
paving stone.
The weapon of song
can never replace
a singing weapon;
lyrical word becomes
real material force
when it grips
the people in
their senses.
[Here nervous Sokrates
Plato makes to wag
his Panish head.]
Fisted there,
however:
we lack full power
of educated senses.
Sorted hands,
we’re soft
or calloused.
Soft,
our sentimental
education,
Kultur plucked
in passing,
holds the place,
rocks not the house.
Horny-skinned,
we hate the books
we’ve not been taught
how to love;
consequently
such songs
as these
will hardly find
us.
Song,
the unarmed prophet yet chanting:
So many kinds of love,
so many arts of singing.
In a world truly leapt
beyond necessity,
you will find
no Art or culture
industry, no poets
by profession,
but only people
who loving song
sometimes sing,
among many other things,
painting, for example,
or kissing roses.
Song will out.
Words wing off
into music,
arousing lovers
to flesh-call,
calling back the dead
in their haloed beauty,
promising what could be
what could be
but is not.
Song, the bursting
of monad,
scattering tones
and voices,
the restless heart
in common,
all the storms
that have hit
and pierced us,
soarings of hope,
the loneliest miseries
of our blocked
powers.
We choose to love
although of course
we do not do it
just as we please.
To wit, the rest
is dross.
* * *
Minstrel, jongleur,
vagans, mime,
I sing in jest
and fatal earnest,
spitting and slinging,
puking and rebuking,
barking and biting
the hand that reads me,
thieving and leching,
arrogantly deflecting
– that is, correcting –
birthing but a new word
or two as glue
for the monstrous music
of endless collage.
And what of it?
Piss off, as it pays
no rent! So what,
if I call it fun?
Back! Only fools fuck
with a desperado!
This world makes sick
and earns the rancor
of every singing canker.
That it giveth me no living
is mildest complaint!
Recombinant
is the Word shot
down to earth,
lovely changeling
close to hand,
like an ink
brush or a
paving stone.
The weapon of song
can never replace
a singing weapon;
lyrical word becomes
real material force
when it grips
the people in
their senses.
[Here nervous Sokrates
Plato makes to wag
his Panish head.]
Fisted there,
however:
we lack full power
of educated senses.
Sorted hands,
we’re soft
or calloused.
Soft,
our sentimental
education,
Kultur plucked
in passing,
holds the place,
rocks not the house.
Horny-skinned,
we hate the books
we’ve not been taught
how to love;
consequently
such songs
as these
will hardly find
us.
Song,
the unarmed prophet yet chanting:
So many kinds of love,
so many arts of singing.
In a world truly leapt
beyond necessity,
you will find
no Art or culture
industry, no poets
by profession,
but only people
who loving song
sometimes sing,
among many other things,
painting, for example,
or kissing roses.
Song will out.
Words wing off
into music,
arousing lovers
to flesh-call,
calling back the dead
in their haloed beauty,
promising what could be
what could be
but is not.
Song, the bursting
of monad,
scattering tones
and voices,
the restless heart
in common,
all the storms
that have hit
and pierced us,
soarings of hope,
the loneliest miseries
of our blocked
powers.
We choose to love
although of course
we do not do it
just as we please.
To wit, the rest
is dross.
* * *
Minstrel, jongleur,
vagans, mime,
I sing in jest
and fatal earnest,
spitting and slinging,
puking and rebuking,
barking and biting
the hand that reads me,
thieving and leching,
arrogantly deflecting
– that is, correcting –
birthing but a new word
or two as glue
for the monstrous music
of endless collage.
And what of it?
Piss off, as it pays
no rent! So what,
if I call it fun?
Back! Only fools fuck
with a desperado!
This world makes sick
and earns the rancor
of every singing canker.
That it giveth me no living
is mildest complaint!
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