Posey & Wood – Feb.14

Rafe Posey and Earle Wood traded words and music. Rafe shared this poem with Earle:

High Desert Sutra

I rode a carousel with Allen
the unicorn in the uncity
tall rocks, not broad shoulders,
far from the urbane glistening lovemusk of
streets cars subways

in the cactus and sagebrush
seeking the girls and visions,
I stand staring at you,
questing,

where is Jack now, or Billy?
The sky never darkens
pinpoints
stars
the wornout denim of firmament
yea and I speak unto you,
you, o cactus, o kit fox, o beaded lizard, o antelope
I become Coyote,
the renegade trickster pimp of the universe.

Use me up and call me yours,
a vessel, a vassal,
myself in the baked out scrub of
red pink orange blue
the earth stinks of sage

the gods implore me to forget them, me,
unready with their message. I

balance with Pan on the mesas,
washout of arroyo floods
day after day after day after
Pan says, shut your mouth, brother, shut your eyes,
listen to the king of
spunk and madness
tell you how it is, brother, become
one with this rock here,
shaped like the way you loved your father.
Bask, brother, in the distance from the ocean.

No million miles of water here, brother,
Pan says, and he smiles
festooned with deity
all knowing.

In response, Earle wrote this poetic score:

* * * *
Earle shared this original song, “Drunk Monkey,” with Rafe (click on image to hear the song on SoundCloud):

In response, Rafe wrote this poem:

Monsoon

The tangerine furze
of the next
town over
beckons

Dangles its fingers
on the palm of my
heart faster
still faster.

We have a desert to cross.

Pink cathedraled sorrow
an abscondment
of joy.

Breathe.

Tarantella me
for love
and light
and all those boys
in the citycanyons of yesteryear.

You said you
had a song
or were
a song
I couldn’t hear
unless I left myself
wide open

a plisk of melody
in someone else
their heart.

So I danced
all limber
swaying the dust and dreams
baring my scars to
Orion
the Great Bear
a swan made of diamonds

And your fingers
still
moving against me
the tremble of rain
on an August leaf

And you,