That was "Day After Day of The Dead."
This is "Anabatic Jukebox."
[PIANO MUSIC]
Skin, bone, meat, blood suspect, we were again on our way
somewhere else.
Body suspect, gone what soul was,
Ohlone games dropping painted sticks lay behind us.
Lone coast receded, we moved on.
Sentient wind we'd be one with again, lost what soul once was.
Lone coast, honed edge we hurt our feet on.
Again, we were beginning to be gone.
[PIANO MUSIC]
As though there'd long since been only one sun, blank sun.
The one sun sun's eventual end.
Blank blacked in thick indelible ink, bird beak stylus,
again we'd soon be gone.
[PIANO MUSIC]
For now it was only a window I stood at,
a boat-bodied harp on the box as I looked out.
Mamane looked over my shoulder, 'Reverend King'
the next cut came up.
Laughter broke out, we'd all been weeping.
Sob held at bay by giggle, we burst out laughing,
happy to hear time turn back.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Trane's bass reed made us laugh, keep crying.
Dolphy's clarinet's high carouse.
Ribcage theater, tease, tickle, long fingers
working what was down deeper, laugh
though we did although we wept.
We slapped hands and were laughing,
happy to be young, again, glad not
knowing better, knew better.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Not one death but many we'd heard.
And a breath now said the same.
The other box, the box we were stuck in sound our one release.
Bent pitch gave rise, we insisted,
to what words gave reason to be, each the eventual ghost
we sometimes were.
Each that all would end up there.
An announcement, notes posted as we made our way out.
One felt a friend's gaze cross one's right shoulder, what
one looked at also looked at from in back.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Husk it was one heard, it's unsteadiness.
Reed's unwieldiness the boon it now was, captious,
we heard it crack.
Thus the birdboy's dreamt kin came to include us,
cracked husks' fissures whispering,
droll whistle we fell back from.
A Sahelian furtherance it was we heard, Salif Keita,
another new cut on the box.
We pursed our lips, bit seeds albeit the box
fell apart, the utopic box it continued to be.
Pursed our lips, bit seeds, gap all that was left,
bit seeds broke our teeth.
Air sucked in through all the emptiness was bodiless,
we all stood as one.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Sprung polity's pneumatic jukebox it was my friend
and I surmised, each of them the ghost
he or she would eventually be, crevice and protuberance moot.
What would be there?
What would not?
Friend whispering into one's ear, maybe not.
Polity, we stood as though we were.
The window showed a shoe-box garden, green's wild edge
turned in on green itself, blade rolled into each leaf, blood
each leaf's reglet.
[PIANO MUSIC]
We stood transfixed by the box's pull upward.
A balloon or a kite it might have been.
A new cut sang the singer's beloved,
recalled her dressed in only a scarf and on the scarf
the smell of neck sweat, late night's agitant perfume.
It was the glass's way of speaking we saw,
windowpane bell jar thick.
Worried would we get there, what we saw be what we'd get,
belled horns bellow again.
'Reverend King' came back to us, neck sweat notwithstanding,
belled horns' bellow, bray.
We stood reminded we'd been there
before, caught in the walls' rumble,
saltbox dismay we swayed inside.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Rumble was back, rubble, wall all window, again.
Atlantis.
East St. Louis.
Either, might have been both.
It was a march we were caught up in,
commencement, a march we consoled ourselves.
Marched, albeit we stood unmoving,
stood hoisted high we'd have said.
Jericho, we'd have said, wall falling,
wall all rung, even so.
Hoisted, albeit we stood our legs dangled,
feet came off the floor.
The horns played hurt it sounded like.
We ascended the wall that wasn't there.
Where were we?
We were gone so soon.
We demanded they tell us.
See-thru brink an abeyance, my friend and I
and the we I what-said.
We were spawn of what tore loose.
Our legs dangled.
Mud clumps fell from our feet.
A call climbed our throats as though it were we
the horns enlisted, move what was otherwise
wall stuff, adobe, colloquy, straw.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Abide my friend, I heard myself say.
The box's mouthpiece it seemed, wood lips, box head, box body.
Abide, I said, even so.
It wasn't puff, however much it seems so.
The friend who stood at my back and to my right.
Box head, wood lips, box body, shadow box, cardboard insides.
Abide, I said, more to myself it might have been.
Wood lips, box body, box tongue, late aspect,
late luxurious music, endless till it ended, we found out.
[PIANO MUSIC]
Stood happy sad at the sonic window, om mani padme hum.
The glass we looked in through bell as in bellow, again.
Fret not thyself, my friend said it seemed, I said,
bell as in bellow blared on.
Death obsessed friend and foe which is familiar.
Fret not thyself I did say.
Empty window mu as in mood, I do believe, I said it seemed,
I said."
[PIANO MUSIC]
[APPLAUSE]