It’s 35 minutes to midnight on the 4th of January.
If I can tell you that this one room
holds all candles —
tapers, tealights, pillars,
plain white power-outage poles,
small votives for struggling souls,
delicate dinner-party decoratives —
in all scents —
sandalwood, ylang ylang,
rose, smoke, vanilla, mint,
and many nameless synthetics, novel,
teasing, but ultimately leading back
to the natural — and if I can say
how this one shop sells all
the bells, drums, chimes and microphones
we could ever want, and all the crystals,
with their real and imaginary functions,
then I can show you how this one tune
includes all notes.
Light and dark
up and down
infinity and one.
All flavours of quarks
All chantings of monks
All parts, all syntheses,
all theses
All sounds of all systems.
When we taste and leap and whoop, the tune cavorts
When we moan and clutch our rags, the same tune begs
When we go as deep as we can, the tune goes with us
For as long as it hurts — the tune stays with us
When we come up screaming, the notes are our output
When we dance in the rain of our making,
the tune is the dance and the rain
This tune, and the next tune,
and the next,
yours and mine
But it’s thirty-five minutes to midnight on the 4th of January.
A man is barking like a dog and I don’t know why.
Is he having an orgasm? Beating a woman?
Or just drinking and shouting?