TREE RINGS
Victor Jara Came Singing In The Night
The Ghost Of A Thousand Slaves
I Could Give It Up For You (Lyrics)
I ate the delicate deer
on the way
to E=MC squared.
I shaped the dead
into a giant brain
landed on the moon
with an elk’s head
mounted
on the wall
of my heart
with bloody fingers
I parted the curtains
of a glowing white idea
caught a glimpse
of God
wearing formulas
funneled Him
into a highway
above the dark city
drove through
my evolution
in a car of light
regretted myself
into
a butterfly
made a wheel and a lever
in the cavern of my ethics
to move
the stone
of how I got here
to a constant brilliant apology
an epitaph
of enlightenment
over the graves
of my animal-walking
to comprehension
I ate you
you became the flesh
of
cannibalism abolished
the flesh
of my awakening
today
when I fly above the muck
ingrained with my footprints
when I float on a silver ship
above a valley of
bones
you are with me,
in me,
beside me,
above me
I ate your heart
I used your courage to
free my mind
became you
by an urn of tears
you wept me to a higher place
interposed yourself
between my infancy
and my wings
healed me, from the
tip of my spear
I know now
what I was
leaping from
a howl
to a human
you were
my ladder
and my twin
this golden world
I paint into being
with the rays of my mind
is your world
your chains
lifted my head through the clouds
Erase my name from the book of gifts
you were the one
who invented the light bulb
proud plume of human thought,
it was the galley slave who rowed fire
into the world
the one whose tombstone
doesn’t say a thing
Look at what I have done with your stolen rib,
made a world from crimes
then turned it into wine
I confess my sins, without renouncing
the bounty of blood
I needed to ride on shoulders of darkness
to reach the Sun
Sheer Hell
of such accomplishment
rife with transgression
were it not for your unwilling blood
flowing through my veins
that I lead
like a horse to water
I’ll drink for both of us,
for me above you with a sword
and for you haunting my prodigal leisure
with the next step
I’ll open the door
of my past
to you
hand in hand
walking with my guilt
we’ll share this tower
nourished
by the rich earth
of your destruction
Should the light
go back into its hole
because it bit the foot of angels
when it was young
should the torch forever
remain the serpent
that it was?
Is evolution progress
or only running from the crime scene?
Yes, I’m a cannibal
it’s how I got here
how I made this garden
that wonders where you are
Can you ever forgive me?
Won’t you come back as my father or
my son
as the knife
in my own hand
to stab equality back into history
through my heart
and let the taste of honey in?
Won’t you turn paradise green
with your return
won’t you let me
carry you across the river
of my selfishness
to the living?
Won’t you say something
from my flesh
open you eyes
from within me
see what we two
have done together
won’t you come to live
in the oasis
in the desert
of what I did to you
the enlightenment that the
beast’s journey
has placed
like a crown
upon my head of guilt?
I gave the angels
the script of history
and asked for a rewrite,
but they let it go:
the man in white
gets shot at dawn.
How could the whole world
get it wrong,
stain his strong heart
God protected with only a
white shirt
with the blood of
something so obvious?
Throw a baby off a wall
and everybody knows it’s a crime,
wrap it up in politics
and suddenly
an army will blossom from it;
a court,
a judge behind the mask of God,
a mob of pallbearers,
a firing squad.
Stand the man
in the white shirt
against the wall
no flowers shall we tolerate
before the spring.
We give him the cigarette
of a coming generation
to smoke
before we hurl ourselves
out of gun barrels
into the graveyard
of empires.
His eyes lost their fear
as we took aim
his contempt
like a tight-rope walker, danced above
the impending earth,
we could not fly with him
eyes burned stone,
singed the rock of history with a soul.
Clay foot branded with a sin.
One beautiful man
dying well
breaks the pillars
of a delusion
in the subconscious
of the palace
innocent blood runs free
like a lion
among the lambs of bullets
sheer power
bends to the will of God
acts of
self-sabotage
slipped like
impurities into the iron
the sword will break.
Nations flagellate themselves
with ambition,
reach for honey
in the wrong tree
because they know justice is there
and they must flow back to it:
water from the mountain
must come down.
So decreed the man
in the white shirt,
the end of tyrants,
with his lack of social camouflage,
his exposed altar,
his proud ideas
and his unused knees
his wasted beauty
saved by a smile
that melted guns
that kept him moving
towards the world
he could already see
on the other side of
the firing squad.
Victor Jara Came Singing In The Night
Victor Jara appeared in a dream singing a song to me. I remembered parts of it, and immediately after waking, extended additional lyrics outwards from what I had originally heard in my dream. In my dream Victor sang in Spanish, but also, at times, his voice came out as images which my mind instantly put into words, in English. Victor Jara was a great, socially conscious singer and songwriter, murdered during the Chilean military coup of 1973. For more about his life and work, see Victor: An Unfinished Song by Joan Jara.
Misterio
Misterio
encontrado en el dolor
Misterio
Misterio
escondido en el amor
El mar esta en una gota
El misterio esta en la derrota
Tears is another word for angels
But don’t despair
El misterio
is holding us in its hands.
It’s a hard way to travel
to the promised land,
but we’ll get there.
Beneath the marching feet,
in defeat
is the hidden throne
of the weak.
Justice will make you
forever strong.
It’s where the earth of tragedy
meets the sky of hope.
Sometimes
you can reach it through a song.
Dip your bucket
into a well
and bring back the waters
of the silver bell.
Misterio
Misterio
encontrado en el dolor
Misterio
Misterio
escondido en el amor
El mar esta en una gota
El misterio esta en la derrota
Tears is another word for angels
But don’t despair
El Misterio
is holding us in its hands.
It’s a hard way to travel
to the promised land,
but we’ll get there.
Don’t count on liberty to keep the light
Look into the Misterio for the Sun
One day the cat’s paw
will reach through the crack;
it’s what they do
and have always done.
But we have something
stronger than a gun.
El Misterio
Our only hope,
forever ours.
Lies are a moment,
the truth is long.
El Misterio.
We have not closed the door
with our deeds:
the door of love that leads us
to the place where all men
are free.
El Misterio.
Mas alla de las vidas rotas
de los pueblos vencidos y las derrotas
El Misterio
que siempre nos guarda
Storms pass through Heaven but do not stay.
Don’t be frightened by the price you pay.
A better world is on the way.
Viene ahora, ya lo se.
El Misterio
is holding us.
Victorian chimes
Church bells are ringing
somewhere above this strange landscape
that fits perfectly
into right now
it is the past, in these times
it’s a city
with buildings fine
like cathedrals
of the practical
but I can see brotherhood
in their stone souls.
a black carriage drawn by horses
goes down a
wide avenue
a driver with a top hat
regally servile
surveys the journey
for whoever’s inside,
secret and above
why don’t I hate it,
this city
built upon a broken jewel
across the sea?
But there’s a sweetness
in its error
an innocence cowering within the
sins to be paid
like a child playing ball
who broke a glass window
and ran
it’s more juvenile than dark,
though the damage is the same
I know it’s my duty to hate
the elegant form that
the architects have given to the
loot
but a part of me rushes towards it
like a little boy
who wants to cling
to his mother’s dress
in the frightening world
of right and wrong,
there’s what’s familiar
and the bells are ringing
in some church tower
that rises above the misused power,
slipping and sliding across history,
past the heart to convenience;
a delusion is blooming,
another flower in history
that judgment will wilt.
But for now,
held by the tender forgiveness of the bells,
the city weeps tears of regret
for itself,
nostalgic,
celebrating its grand ignorance,
and it’s dream, broken by victims
and all the coffin lids are opened
and the city’s dead join hands
to dance
what was the pinnacle of history
in their eyes
one more time
a beautiful fantasy
that time untied
like a knot
in the truth
they did not know what they did
but I can’t forgive them,
only the stairs they climbed
can say it’s all right now
Until then, they will not know
they flee back into the citadel of
blindness that ruled the world
and mill about, before the gates of Hell,
drawing comfort
from their kind,
multitudes bound together by a single redeeming lie;
they are not sinners in their times.
Baptized by their shallowness,
prayed for by their hope,
they will be gently held, forever,
by the sweet sound
of Victorian chimes.
Hero, timeless,
multiplied by the coefficient
of your times,
what will
the outcome be?
And whose eyes are opened
long enough
to see?
Hero, timeless,
the power that brought us
from the first frightening night to now:
to what color of the spectrum will you bow?
To what perception will you be harnessed:
what earthly field
will you plow?
Hero, timeless,
standing naked, pure and brave;
shining like a star.
In the clothes of what politics
will you be garbed?
What idea, glorious or depraved,
will own your eye
and use your heart?
Hero, timeless,
every handful of mud
from the human river
turns up something great.
You are the lantern of our hope.
What hand wields you?
What future will you illuminate?
Hero, timeless,
you are the best of what we have:
the angel of our unity
who bears the flag of our division.
In what direction
will we point your goodness;
what lions shall we feed you to -
what philosophy, what vision?
Hero, timeless,
you are the morning star;
if only we would free you to redeem us
instead of chaining you to
who we are.
If only you would not listen to us;
if only you would drive
our ideals
from your heart.
Hero, timeless,
unhitch the wagon of our sins;
run free with God beyond us.
You are too beautiful to be our sword.
You are not of the family
of our transgression.
Give up the mortal form
that binds you to us;
return to being sun and wind.
I am the ghost of a thousand slaves
which means I must now be free.
Once upon a time I bowed down to you,
now you must bow down to me.
Not in servitude but in reverence.
I will not do to you what you did to me.
I am the ghost of a thousand slaves
delivered by the hands of freedom's clock;
don’t look for me in the mines or fields
or on the auction block;
but above the flood of history,
standing on God’s rock.
I am the ghost of a thousand slaves,
your words don’t own my eyes.
The echoes of what was done back then
will forever haunt me, and make me wise.
Just as the whip marks still on my back
will protect me from your lies.
I am the ghost of a thousand slaves,
for you I’ll never kneel.
The precious things I guard within me,
no gun or myth will steal.
Do not expect to rule with fantasies
people for whom chains were real.
I am the ghost of a thousand slaves
I saw my shadow standing by the open door;
though I live in the world he died to give
he came to me asking more:
that I carry his broken soul to daylight
and row his shipwrecked children to the shore.
I am the ghost of a thousand slaves.
I won’t come to life
until the dead come from me like rivers.
They’ll make the earth's plain green
with a million Niles,
there'll be no repetitions
and no denials;
history will sing new centuries
in their voice.
Tree rings,
how will I grow today,
what will I leave behind to
record
the green moment?
Words of today
becoming yesterday,
my footprints
bound in bark,
a walking
mournful,
rarely joyous soul,
but something like a
mountain peak
rises above the satiated
with truth
growing
towards
a new day,
a new experience,
who or what
will become imbedded
in my woody flesh,
be written by green leaves
turned towards the sun
into a poem,
become a ring
enclosed in my upward climb,
words dancing
like nature lovers
around
the blinking eyelash of time
or else deep silence,
a ring of utter quiet
built around
humility
in reverence to the Now,
a year of me,
wordless and bowing
in some inner Mecca;
or even happiness
knocking the wind out of
sorrow’s verbal
tapestry,
or longing answered
with cries
of passion
in the place of
turquoise tears.
My artistry
diving beneath the sea of loving her,
no ripple of words
left on the surface.
Tree rings.
Scars
and lipstick stains
inside my
limping
bark
reach up
towards Heaven;
prancing in the chains of my roots,
shaking my mane of leaves
at God.
The secret of my height
is all the things I can never reach.
Tree rings.
There is no
stealth
in the way
I feel life,
cut me open
and read
my story
tree rings
tell it all
things I had to say
or die
secrets I couldn’t bear alone
illusions
sad and grand in my heart
knots of fruitless
pilgrimages
gnarled
inside
my vulnerabilities
places where I lost branches
in storms
or in ecstasies of despair,
when I cut myself
without
self-perception
in loyalty
to
loggers
and their philosophies,
tiny sores
of insect homes
neuroses
that needed a host
prophets that needed
a disciple
and scratch marks
of the wild cat
who turned me
into his border
the wood
of words hides nothing,
my journey on a page.
Because solitude
needs a traitor,
I wrote.
Tree rings
my sweet
discarded past
which I picked out of the garbage can
after everyone had left the room
and put back inside me
hiding it
behind dried tears;
and where I am now, also,
exuding
reflections
and mourning,
praying by the lake
and tearing at my hair,
waiting on a sunny day,
because you are rain
and where I will be tomorrow
and what I will grow around.
Tree rings.
My compromise
with discretion,
shameless intimacy
locked into
the inviolable
form of art
a world within the bark,
my life,
invisible
and blatant,
whispering
its precious
itinerary
to the distant
sympathetic ears
of night.
The broken princess
babbles,
by her throne:
wounds
the second world
came to heal.
She wears a crown of her own blood
and points her scepter
towards her tears;
drives away
the suitors
with their
horses and their
camels and their
wagons
overflowing with
sapphires,
pearls,
rubies, emeralds,
and gold;
her finger
won’t wear the ring
of true love,
she’s in love
with the shadow king her loneliness
invented
to
protect
the virginity
of her
imagination.
She dreams
dreams
untainted by
reality
still believes
she can
touch the moon
fly away
with the geese
across the gray sky
to a cradle
somewhere
beyond the snow
still believes
she can bring him back.
She sends her army
to conquer a city
on the water,
which her pining, gullible hand
drew upon the map
waits for
bounties
set like sharpened
thorns
around the roses
of the possible.
How far her eyes can see,
past what’s in reach,
to her unhappiness
wearing gold,
she lives, as if with
a telescope in her hand,
saves herself from nearby joy
by always peering into a
distant land.
The roses protest
with weeping petals
that cry perfume,
like horses
leaving clouds of dust
behind
as they retreat
from summer,
and leave her
only with
what is in her mind.
The secret of
deep love
and the strong arms of souls
embracing
emptiness,
withdraw
before the power
of her idealism,
which hoards her like a miser
for the winter.
She’s doomed
by her dreams
to live and die alone;
to kill
a hundred kings
and write "Where is he?"
upon a hundred stones.
Beautiful book
of fairy tales
in her bed,
sweet child
who rode the
woman
off the earth.
No man’s left to bow
in the desert,
the flowers all went back to God,
and God is dead!
Nothing’s left
but broken princess
babbling wounds
in a palace
that has become
her tomb.
Teddy Bear
by an open window
with a star-filled night;
box is there
to pack you up to nowhere.
Baby’s gone.
Cleaning up the room of life,
Mom and Dad can only wipe their eyes.
Who made the rules?
Who can read
the Higher Plan,
and who could write it,
what kind of hand?
Laughter’s gone,
and baby’s dream;
memories fill the room
like broken glass,
got to sweep it clean.
Parents sounded
the bugle of grief
and gave the order for
the toys’ retreat;
till only one spot in the box
was left.
And it’s just as you would expect:
Teddy Bear was the
last to leave.
Loyal, faithful Teddy Bear,
who stood guard for many a night;
who drove away sweet baby’s fears
and was stained by baby’s tears.
Loyal, faithful Teddy Bear
is finally moving on.
Going to look for Baby
in the Beyond.
Hammer baby,
raised by hammers
Tarzan
swings on vines
Hammer baby
beats your ass
both live under
the permanent billboard
of where they
come from
take it or leave it
Hammer baby,
raised by hammers
Carpenter says
build a house
Hammer baby says
I just want to hit you,
why should something useful
come out of it?
Carpenter says
drive these nails into the wall
Hammer baby says
I want to drive them
into your hands
Carpenter says
turn around,
take the nails
out of the wall
Hammer baby says
does that mean
I get to hit them again?
Hammer baby,
raised by hammers
What do you expect,
living with Hammer baby?
Doesn’t want to build a house
Wants to beat your ass.
Even more than wants to beat your ass,
has to beat your ass.
Hammer baby,
raised by hammers
There’s no other way
and nothing you can say
That’s how Hammer baby plays;
kiss your fingers
till they break;
it’s not love
if you’re not black and blue.
Hammer baby,
raised by hammers.
Welcome to the family.
The manufactured universe
like a house constructed
from your wounds.
You built partitions
between the facts
to make a living room.
And carved a hole in solid rock
where your suspicions would not fit
to make space for your paranoia
so you could keep on believing all that sh*t.
And in the center of it all
there’s a statue of the man who loved you true,
sculpted into a monster
by the terror that’s inside of you.
So now when you look out
from behind your troubled eyes
the world matches your nightmare
and seems to prove your lie.
If only I could have reached you
before the sculptor who first cut into your stone
and shaped your hands to shape the world
so you would always be alone.
The manufactured universe
congealed from your blood,
has no gateway for the angels,
and no window to see love.
The manufactured universe
our love died there beside your doubt.
You turned me into the north wind
and built a wall to keep me out.
The manufactured universe
you molded reality with your brain
to see things the way you needed to
so you could forever keep your pain.
Little fish
on the surface
feeds on plankton,
which feeds on
the sun.
Big fish
feeds on
little fish,
bigger fish
feeds
on big fish.
Bottom dweller
feeds
on
the dead
raining down
as sorrow,
tragic
dandruff
cascading
from the
ocean’s hair
into the waiting mouth
of the black night.
Down there,
at the end of it all,
what’s left alive
distorts itself
like dark
balloons
twisted at a party,
grows
monster heads
and breaks out with sores
of glowing light,
little purple shadows
playing sun:
hated yellow ball
imbedded
in a pathetic echo
hanging in the
sky of a body
that’s afraid
to come up.
Bottom dweller
forsook
the light of the ocean
to become
the courtesan
of the
dead.
Feeding
on
the inevitable
crime
of
tiny injustices,
they feel justified
to respond
with non-existence,
to shut themselves down in revenge,
to withdraw
into the
unreachable
depths
to the strange world
of their phantom
bodies.
There, they measure
every imperfect
thing
until the
end of time,
drift alone
gobbling up
fantasies of
persecution
falling over their heart
like black snow.
Human white-out
That’s what I need,
someone with a kiss to
give me back the empty page:
I can’t write over you
I need the naked on naked, again,
the Alzheimer’s of love
to make you fall
through the
trapdoor
of my mind,
let it all be shadows,
shadows and sweat,
I won’t know what I had,
I’ll just wander through the dark
loving what’s in reach
I’ll be happy again
If I can just
stretch this
orgasm
out
for the rest of my life
Human white-out
Spill her
on the page of you
start again
crawl over the
hard white spot
where I buried you
with a pen
that can’t stop writing
love
You were the one
but you
filled the page
with irresistible
abstention
forced me to be self-loving
like a hermaphrodite,
a man
and a transvestite
riding a hand
into the thick of the
loneliness
your face
and my pitiful
approximation
turning my white corpse
into your
tan body
wrapped around
myself
strangling
the windpipe
of my groin
till adultery
came, capitulation to an adventure
adulterous
because you
were my inside-wife
though you
didn’t show up
for the wedding
in your
vagina
left me
spinning a
bridal gown
of words
which you undid
each night
with
wounds of your own
until
my wrist gave up at last
called in the reinforcements
of a warm body
and filled the emptiness
with your orgasm
in someone else’s ecstasy
Human white-out
I loved you
so much
I couldn’t
live another day
without
writing
someone
in your
place.
Broken by you,
I lay these flowers
at your feet
&nbs