It’s the needle pointing nowhere. It’s the callus on your thumb. The compass busted, the deck broke open, the read long lost in all the cuts and shuffles. The eyes go wide, the body sets its stance. You hear a horn that would put Gabriel to shame, a little cutting by Coltrane. The world is always catching you up. Breaking bones and cutting deals between scenes, the catastrophe of apostasy burning down your senses, seething in the madness of the panic and the pain. The body shifts its balance, and awaits the next onslaught. Pretty as a picture, naked as the rain.
It all begins as navigation. The bleary alarm laden fumble to find a way back into the world, the phone on the nightstand, the cheaters by the tissue box. First the world, then the names given to my fitting. The action, then the lights. Monk’s hands dancing between times, the magic before the spell, a name before your own name is worn. But, oh, how they blow them horns. The flowers for the forests, the lion’s paw for the thorns. Black palate preacher, archivist of ancient ious, the snap of each lascivious lash. Goat and ghost, minder of the fire, heavy handed hoofer and keeper of the shtick.
There’s no hope that goes with poet. There’s no gelt or gravy that’s assured. Just the late papers and the bitter dregs. Love letters left seething on the floor. Notebooks spilling uncut secrets and the fundaments of the lore, the way the world followed witness, goddesses and witches taking the knee at the crossroads parlays and backwoods reveals. The art and the aspect, the slow sail of the first quarter moon, the beckon of smoke and the prayer of fire. You leave it because it’s too far gone, you leave it because it’s lost. This thrall you are waiting for. These boots you’re going to use.