Give Me A Lever And a Place To Stand, Series II
Give Me a Lever And A Place To Stand: 12
"Who lives
in the vault?
Our dreams.
Who exploits
the glob?
The Jaguar of life itself.
The glob is thus surely
not vapidity merely.
It is the secret root
of "ontological crystal."
Can there be a Glob whose exploits turn
Glob to intelligence
and bless with mind
the Mole
and bring to an end
intransigent Vapidity?"
Wrench Boy's questions
must advance to Saturation.
Vapidity itself
began to sprout small Violets.
Crystal tried so hard
to realize her own name,
that no Vapid Refuse
undermine the Globe
that is her perfect nature.
White Noise that followed her everywhere
Bearing a tincture from Black Box,
yet Black Lake remains intransigent
however Noise does seem
merely Vapidity to Wrench Boy.
Each episode must proceed
to its point of Saturation.
[]
The Vault lined with crystals
would be a Black Box.
Exploitation
does not yet appear
to be but Vapid
Exaggeration.
Exploit that. But show
the exaltation of Crystal
above the Noise of the world?
The world was once a Globe,
a Fence about one's Violets.
Crystal holds her mind beyond itself
so as to seem a Black Box,
a source of many dreams,
not hyperdimensional, if elegant,
Big Noise only.
[]
Hammerhead's at rest
as his Glob.
He persists in a state of alarm,
poised,
unable or unwilling,
to hazard the next step.
Wrench Boy Refuses
to rotate the fellow's Globe.
The questions of all of us
accrue to him; that is,
he asks them.
The identity of Nations
is like a proliferation of Moles--
rats really--
in an over-populous metropolis.
The true Glob,
is at rest in itself,
impassive, if not intransigent,
ripe, in fact
for deft configuration.
[]
Wrench Boy will not Refuse
to use his African Rattle
to further our
general inquisition.
"I'll work my dreams,"
thought Wrench Boy.
"I'll entertain whatever Melee
exceeds Exaggeration.
My dream: that the world is full of Moles,
till I am wakened
by The Bell.
I don't think I know this."
[]
Jaguars prowl
in the form of hidden thinkers
searching the Vapidity of Tongues
still to be heard a-chattering through the Glob.
[]
The Zoo has not reconvened
in spite of the stream of ingenuity
aroused with some assiduity
to force it do so.
What impends
once again
waits in its closet.
The meaning of Black Box
is a Black Box.
Give Me A Lever And A Place To Stand: 13
Hammerhead gestates
beyond his multiply
instantiated desperation.
No African Rattle yet
can agitate his Abstraction.
Initiation has long since carried Crystal
across her Initial habilitation
and beyond her Closet
of vertiginous, magical Tongues.
Her further initiation abstracts Initiation
from the worldless Melee
such a Closet might hold in store.
Jaguar Refuses to stay in his Closet
but leaps eternally
from Black Box
as if he were one of the Tongues the Closet allows
in its familial darknesses and dusts--
the Fullness of a Last Initiation--
The Great Return
to Black Lake
where the intimate figure of Wrench Boy rides his Mole
forever about the lip of it--
these images
might be stored
in anyone's Closet
under cover of which Jaguar stages
an intricate public Refusal.
[]
There seem to be instructions
for each of us.
I am to proliferate distraction.
Each thought,
one Vault.
Initially a Melee
preceding or coming after
Initiation:
Concentration, originally a Fence
around a place
where Wrench Boy separates his Jaguars
from the random Refuse
collected in mind's Closet,
formed into a vast Glob of dust,
an extra-galactic Melee.
Outer Space is like an African Rattle--
outer relative to what though?
Fullness
Closets
Jaguars.
[]
The Dream Closet cannot
make Hammerhead quake.
He is immured against the Noise of existence.
In his closet, he just watches Melee.
[]
Violet holds Noise
tight in the nut
between her purple petals.
[]
A dusty Closet is what
remains of The Zoo.
This portends to impede
the next Initiation,
but a Bell
resonates
across the vast space
that opens the mind of Wrench Boy.
Wrench Boy Concentrates
until he skries up Wrench Girl.
Together they contemplate
the progress of the Nations.
Give Me A Lever And A Place To Stand: 14
The Globe no longer
provides a place to stand.
A Vault and its
cognitive Noise
lies hollow
under the Grass.
We wag our tongues
but the Grass
blows west
when the Bell rings--
an empty lot
where the Zoo had been,
brown Grass,
disconsolate wind Noise
among the Grass blades,
a random proliferation of Violets,
desolation indeed,
were it not for the Crystal Bell sound
to recall an ancient Fullness
and the Bell itself
that Wrench Girl recovered
from the lot
and rang
as an aid to Concentration
one night
while medicating her syzygy
at a certain spot
on vacant Grass
with Mole and Jaguar
in a move to reinvigorate Melee.
Mole rang the Bell three times
and Crystal was suddenly with them
and that sense of Ancient Fullness.
[]
But still no place
to stand--a Fence
where Jaguars assemble
in Jaguar's vivid intelligence--
an aid indeed
to a kind of Concentration--
a fist full of Violets--
though the Nation itself--
a Melee of Moles
and random Bells
in a crowded metropolis,
whose essence was nevertheless more like
so many vacant lots
seemingly unfit
for any sort
of Initiation
except that the Grass
if properly contextualized, if one were seated
back straight on mat or chair--
the session circumscribed
and dedicated
to an ontology transcendent from Crystal--
supporting Concentrated Distraction--
well-prepared, the Grass--
dedicated to an elegant inquiry--
the Valut Below
lined with crystal--
Black Box -- Black Lake
The Vault --
a fist full of Violets
in everyone's left forepaw--
all this propaedeutic
to another kind of Nation--
a place to stand, indeed--
An African Rattle in one hand, high overhead--
a Bell in the other,
where, but in front of one's heart?--
the social circumstance
something like a Glob;
that is to say,
without undue discrimination--
all unruly difference
resolved by the presence of Black Lake--
all dissonance
resolved in the sound of the Bell--
each participant accommodated
if she carry
a fist full of Violets.
You could hide in a Closet, certainly--
some people do that a lot--
but the Bell does bring Concentration
and a wealth of healing Dreams.
In any case the Closet
was no place for Jaguar,
whose distraction was rather
a kind of obsession with Abstraction as such
and the notion that if only Hammerhead
would come to the vacant Grass,
we could find him a fist full of Violets
and the Grass
at that spot
would rewire his head . . .
Give Me A Lever And A Place To Stand: 15
"To initiate Hammerhead
bring Black Lake to him."
Been tried.
It brought him something
other than Infinite Fullness.
He stared straight at it
but all he saw
was the vacant lot
where the Zoo was to have been--
Fullness for him meant Fences--
and if dreamy fantasms of Fullness
were rising from Black Lake--
he had no inkling of Black Box--
"Those Fences," he quarreled,
"are meant to tighten Tongues
and accelerate
an adequate
state of Concentration--
Fences to tame loose Jaguars
and frustrate Dreams."
"A Fence should be like a Closet," we thought,
"to emphasize Fullness,"
but all he saw was Melee
and a dark unsatisfied Crystal,
albeit a fistful of Violets
was proffered to him perpetually,
a Fenceless Melee of Tongues ungraced by Fullness.
[]
A Bell rang
straight through our Dreams.
A Fence of glass
then of light
no longer like a Closet.
An African Rattle sprung up from the Grass.
Quick-tongued creatures
unhampered by Closet or Fence.
[]
Wrench-Boy, light-hearted with Syzygy
continued to elaborate his inquiry:
"Shall I ride my Mole
right up to Hammerhead,
clean his Closet
with the exuberant sound
of this new-moan African Rattle?
"Shall we all find Fullness in Abstraction,
Truth through Excavation?
"How far can I ride
the vanishing clang of The Bell?
Or is Fullness alone from Black Box?
"When I set up a Fence,
I find my Tongue.
There is no termination to sweet Melee."
Silent Syzygy listened.
He paused for reflection,
then continued his questions:
"Shall I congregate a Nation
where darkest Crystal
can sublime an ontology of Crystal?
"If I enter the Vault at last--
hear-tell it's buried
beneath a luminous Fence
and that to do so entails
severe Initiation--
no scurrilous Mole
can scurry under that fence--
and shall it prove a Black Box and tell us Why?"
[]
Suddenly: Noise
Glob
Distraction
Bummer!
Red-Haired Melee raised her freckled arms and broke the Fence.
The Vacant Lot was vacant no more
but sparked with weird little creatures--
poisonous plants in their forepaws--
ominous screeching and grim insinuations
lurking round the edge of mental Fullness.
First Interval
Alone on Grass
in front of The Old Hotel
Jaguar interjected,
abstractedly,
addressing the absences
in the air:
"Can we have an Interval?"
Certainly.
"I am just a little girl,
I am just a little boy,
and when we make our fingers touch,
it is not only we who disappear."
Whistfully he remembered this.
Wrench Boy/ Wrench Girl in syzygy--
one glob to one globe of light--
She, inspiration for inquiry, not witness only,
but the questions were hers,
he but a bolt or lug nut
to her torque-untwining cloven paw
and was it she
who put the questions? --
waterfall to water-wheel
lug nut to wrench --
The issuance was light and its occultation --
dappled light and shadow on a way.
No Man is Jaguar's shadow --
waterfall to water-wheel
lugnut to wrench.
Jaguar sighed
and absconded
with himself
into the light.
Give Me A Lever And A Place To Stand: 16
Every world
its own
principle of inquiry.
In place of Grass,
one stony goddess
amidst
a blather of attitudes.
Who spins the Globe?
The Mole
concentrates
and holds
his own Dream
like a monarch
aloof above his Nation.
My African Rattle,
radically concentrated,
enables its State.
Concentration is not a means:
Snap!
And suddenly
you are it.
And the Mole
can no more
Concentrate Black Box or Great Nation
for you--
For you have
actuated yourself
as No Man
and the monster
goes back
to his Closet
and there's
no more
pretense
of a Nation.
[]
A change in the weather:
Storm clouds in Crystal--
a racket of Rattles out of Africa.
Consolidation of adversarial submoieties.
Ancient upstart Nations
clang a thousand
cracked bells.
Fragmentation and dispersion
renders Concentration
trivial, local, little
clumps of Violets merely,
creolization of Tongues
only just now come
to maturation--
they wag
in the outback.
Wrench Boy
stands on his rock
amazed.
I take Violet
out of the Nation.
Oh when will No Man
come out of his Closet?
[]
Weather clears.
Black Lake
displays
Black Box.
Discernment
requires
Concentration.
The attitude of No Man.
Heal the Bell
and have
your Initiation.
Clear the Fence
and hear all Tongues
essentialized beyond mere Abstraction.
When Black Box
Concentrates,
Jaguar leaps through the Melee,
Glob glows,
when Black Box
Concentrates,
Wrench Boy/Girl/Boy
in syzygy
happens upon Hammerhead.
Danger:
Another kind of Nation:
Grass Grows Melee.
Let Nation, rather,
pass through Black Box.
[]
After Great Distance
a field
with four-square Fence
or circular.
At the center
just like a magic tree
an African Rattle.
Make this your sign
for the Nation,
then ring your bell.
A Vault will open under the field and its Fence.
[]
All Tongues
are Noise
save Wrench Boy's.
[]
Abstraction
will be
Distraction
till abstract Goddess
stays put
on grass
among a blather of attitudes
to complete Abstraction.
Second Interval
There is no last word
but Initiation
comes
at the end.
The company
assembles
at the rim
of Black Lake.
No wind.
An absorption
of all imagery
sucked
as light itself
into the antithetical blackness.
The fence, four-square and circular,
the rattling tree
in its center
my instruction,
distraction, misdirection,
"Look over there!"
where the wind
is a bird
that leaps into the air
if you see it
the noise
of your eyes
sends it packing.
Initiation
pertains
to us all, the whole
comitatus
committed
to an invisible excellency--
our noise
is the world.