I.

It is no joke

and no mystery that

we are all here together

singing songs from our ancestors

of love, sorrow, and death

me in this hope stained coat

you with the blood of a beet on your skirt

those two making love in the corner

the fiddler crying to the rhythm of laughter

from the drummer whose dancing

has the girls sprawled on the floor

sending their unconceived children

off to war so they’re born

into a nobler state of grace

then we can all escape from this place of despair

to where nothing but music fills the air

 

 

II.

we carried our corpses
a flute a guitar a violin an accordion
and a case of vodka
accompanied by
a dancer a trickster a warrior a crier
cursing along the back-roads of the nowe miasto
to where
we once gathered to play
our love songs
after the invasion
and the next

 

to the places our father’s
fought to their deaths
to play for them
to drink for them
to sing to them
to smoke their last cigarettes
until we were drunk
hurled on the ground
our cold red faces pressed against
white crystals formed around
the edges of boot-prints in the mud
sleeping as they do
a few meters underground
buried by decades of war
covered by the new world order
and a fresh layer of snow

 

Now mostly sober
we carry our corpses back
from the Cytadela
half pickled half fermented
gathering unearthed ordinance
and dislodged shrapnel
to place inside the violin’s F-hole
drop into the sound hole of your guitar
jam into the end of her flute
pierce the trickster’s accordian
and ram down our throats
until there is no memory of the fighting
save the muted sounds of instruments
doing their dirty work

 

 

 

 

 

III.

Child

we come here on the coldest of days

to make love to the wind

to be drunk, eat bread

and suck pear nectar from our wrists

dance our tears into the fertile earth

 

No worries

you will be adult soon enough

able to love

allowed to drink

for now take this fruit and this bread

and dance your joy into the ground

on this coldest of days

 

 

 

 

 

IV.

One bottle we for us

the other our ghosts

who finished theirs first

rendering the perfect moment

of lucid insanity

with the blood drinking deities

and the Bodhisattva of vodka

puking our way through this illusional forest

somewhere along the polish tibetan border

warming our hands on this cold bottle

we rested our tired bodies

leaving our ghosts a’wander

traversing the steppes

for a brief, intense and unexpected

encounter with Candra

 

 

V.

when they opened up your body
to determine the cause of death
they found
music no one had ever heard before
you hadn’t had the chance to write it down

visions of the astral realm you got stuck in
in transit entranced in perpetual dream
no man or woman has ever seen

a sense of compassion extending
beyond the expansioin of all things current
in the universes domain

a sense of loyalty bound in truth
and trust grounded in knowledge
of the rituals of love

a timeless quality wrought
of sacred traditions
kept silent for eons soul long

when they opened up your body
to determine the cause of death
they found you quite alive more than most

 

 

 

 

VI.

Each note

a singularity

a tear for my laughter

 

Each tear

a kiss

upon your heaving bosom

 

Each kiss

a word

in between papierosow

 

Each word

a breath

until the end of this bottle

 

Each Breath

A spell

collapsing the future

 

Each Spell

a song

of warring among lovers

 

Each Song

a prayer

to your god and her devil brothers

 

Each Prayer

a curse

painted on your music staff

 

 

 

 

 

 

VII.

Whisper drunken songs of death to me

as I cross over into sobriety

so I can skip the intermission

butoh

bardo

bardzo

 

a lamentation

with long slow strokes

of your bow in the lowest register

a gentle sobbing as I go

gandharva

butoh

bardzo

 

press your warm hand

on my face

so I can feel your blood trace

as mine ceases to flow

garuda

butoh

bardo

 

drape your body across mine

to protect my soul

and lose your own

insobriety

dakini

heruka

bardzo