Michael+McClure

Michael McClure  "For the Death of 100 Whales" (1955)

Hung midsea Like a boat mid-air The liners boiled their pastures: The liners of flesh, The Arctic steamers Brains the size of a teacup Mouths the size of a door The sleek wolves Mowers and reapers of sea kine. The Giant Tadpoles (Meat their algae) Lept Like sheep or children. Shot from the sea's bore. Turned and twisted (Goya!!) Flung blood and sperm. Incense. Gnashed at their tails and brothers Cursed Christ of mammals, Snapped at the sun, Ran for the Sea's floor. Goya! Goya! Oh Lawrence No angels dance those bridges. OH GUN! OH BOW! There are no churches in the waves, No holiness, No passages or crossings

From the beasts' wet shore. 

"Point Lobos: Animism" (1955) 

It is possible my friend If I have had a fat belly That the wolf lives on fat Gnawing slowly Through a visceral night of rancor. It is possible that the absense of pain May be so great That the possibility of care May be impossible. Perhaps to know pain. Anxiety, rather than the fear Of the fear of anxiety. This talk of miracles! Of Animism: I have been in a spot so full of spirits That even the most joyful animist Brooded When all in sight was less to be cared about Than death And there was no noise in the ears That mattered. (I knelt in the shade By a cold salt pool And felt the entrance of hate On many legs, The soul like a clambering Water vascular system.  No scuttling could matter Yet I formed in my mind The most beautiful Of maxims. How could I care For your illness or mine?) This talk of bodies! It is impossible to speak Of lupine or tulips When one may read His name Spelled by the mold on the stumps When the forest moves about one. Heel. Nostril. Light. Light! Light! This is the bird's song You may tell it  to your children.

"Peyote Poem Part I" (1958)

Clear — the senses bright — sitting in the black chair — Rocker –  the white walls reflecting the color of clouds moving over the sun. Intimacies! The rooms not important — but like divisions of all space of all hideousness and beauty. I hear the music of myself and write it down for no one to read. I pass fantasies as they sing to me with Circe-Voices. I visit among the peoples of myself and know all I need to know I KNOW EVERYTHING! I PASS INTO THE ROOM there is a golden bed radiating all light the air is full of silver hangings and sheathes I smile to myself. I know all there is to know. I see all there is to feel. I am friendly with the ache in my belly. The answer to love is my voice. There is no time! No answers. The answer to feeling is my feeling The answer to joy is joy without feeling The room is a multicolored cherub of air and bright colors. The pain in my stomach is warm and tender. I am smiling. The pain is many pointed, without anguish Light changes the room from yellows to violet! The dark brown space behind the door is precious intimate, silent and still. The birthplace of Brahms. I know all that I need to know. There is no hurry I read the meanings of scratched walls and cracked ceilings I am separate. I close my eyes in divinity and pain I blink in solemnity and unsolemn joy I smile at myself in my movements. Walking I step higher in carefulness. I fill space with myself. I see the secret and distinct patterns of smoke from my mouth I am without care part of all. Distinct I am separate from gloom and beauty. I see all. _______________________________________ (SPACIOUSNESS  And grim intensity — close within myself. No longer a cloud but flesh real as rock. Like Herakles of primordial substance and vitality And not even afraid of the thing shorn of glamour but accepting The beautiful things are not of ourselves but I watch them. Among them.  __________________________________________  And the Indian thing. It is true! Here in my apartment I think tribal thoughts.) ___________________________________________ STOMACH!!! There is no time. I am visited by a man who is the god of foxes there is dirt under the nails of his paw fresh from his den We smile at one another in recognition I am free from time. I accept it without triumph — a fact Closing my eyes there are flashes of light My eyes won’t focus but leap. I see that I have three feet I see seven places at once! The floor slants — the room slopes things melt into each other. Flashes of light and meldings. I wait seeing the physical thing pass I am on a mesa of time and space ! STOM-ACHE! Writing the music of life in words Hearing the round sounds of the guitar as colors Feeling the touch of flesh Seeing the loose chaos of words on the page (ultimate grace) (Sweet Yeats and his ball of hashish.) _________________________________ My belly and I are two individuals joined together in life. __________________________________ THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE we smile with it. ___________________________________ At the window I look into the blue-gray gloom of dreariness I am warm. Into the dragon of space I stare into clouds seeing their misty convolutions The whirls of vapor I will small clouds out of existence They become fish devouring each other And change like Dante’s holy spirits becoming an osprey frozen skyhigh to challenge me.