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
