Reynolds & Midway 70

Telephond in from God, the teacher sd,

Leonard, when talking Beethoven mit Max

@ the piano, talking melody

& harmony—his agile fingers making music

out of the black & white, the on & off,

& that 1st symphony by Rachmaninoff

was gorgeous, inexplicably beautiful—

we switcht around, clickt here & there to list

to this & that, Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn,

saving Schubert for a time perceived

like glossolalia in a dream of gardens

where Keats & Severn arm in arm wld join us

in green, red & yellow leaves, for joyous

Bacchanalian revels, seeing him stand tiptoe

upon a little hill and name each flower

he saw & smell the queen's handwaving leaves

of oaks or maples ? willows ? that's never a willow

hearkening back to Monty always Python

in the skullcage rattling round & woody tinny

words & music violins & violence

of scrambling atoms subatomic particles

of Offenbach Rachmaninoff & Rachinoff

& Onandnoff, concerti for the clarinet,

bassoon, french horn & harp & flute & tuba

too. 

      Too much! he says & stands & leaves

the auditorium, there oughta be a

moratorium on woody tinny fluty

music. All this longhair stuff is stuffy as

a new tuxedo, bowtie strangling, how they do it?

bowing sawing tuning breathing piping

blowing!

7.16.16

Reynolds & Midway 69

Must it be us & ampersands? he sd

& swishd & swiveld amid the booted girls

that throngd in leggy thongy fleshiness

& selfie-taking phone distracted clutches

all about him in the ailses of boxes—

goods squared up & shined to draw the eye

that some say came by accident & some

say was designed, like clocks & Swiss wristwatches—

Yes, it must be, by the mustard jars

which minds me of those mustard scansions I

could never grok nor reckon writ by Crane

Not Stephen but the other one, that Hart

who leapt into the sea to still his heart

& made those bridges clearer in our heads

for why & wherefore who knows only Who

wich is to cap the double you to say

we mean the Big Guy (Note the capital G).

in any case we hope that Hart found rest

& also John who jumpt, & Sylvia

who breathd her last to gain euphoria

oblivion or quiddity & Ann

who suckd death from an engine was it, sounds

easy, for I'm not one to cut or dive, I want

a bloodless slipping into being nothing,

or hell or heaven, who knows. Only One

wich is to say not witch nor majik— note

the tres chic ultra-modern spelling—but

One Only, whither wheresoever He

Or She may be has been discussd aforetime

& by much smarter creatures—let it be known

that there is nothing new under the sun

& everything that ever could be done's

been done a thousand times a million x

a trillion, also there is nothing written

that has not heretofore been written better

& brighter than our brightest, list to Pound's

Kung to his pupils in that brilliant canto

or to the horse's mouth, in ancient x

& all around the world was wisdom won

in heads of men & women thinking things

& dreaming, sossd or sober, in their tents

wigwams igloos clayhuts, caves & ditches.

5.10.16

Reynolds & Midway 67

We're almost there he sd, which means to make

Him supple again, wich means to flesh Him out,

Extend? perhaps Baruch would say & take

some soup or toke, for we had heard about

his fancy for a puff & liked his pipe.

It's something in this thing of one & aught,

some ancient, primal, irreducible pip

at the beginning, wich wld be a point.

But could it be that all we have is hope,

the truth of faith, the struggle for a hint

from Him, to whom we pray and raise a roof

and say it's a temple? Now, Midway ain't no saint

sd Reynolds, that's for sure, and if you want proof

just look him over, he's sick & thin & white,

and if there's any smoother, silkier calf

than his, I'm Lincoln's grandfather. That's right,

I says, & let me tell you all about it,

like Tuco, who had felt the rope pull tight,

& as for yr ass, you cld feel the devil bite it!

We're coming closer to the devil's tower

whan the 19 seventees became excited

w visions of alien & other than our

intelligence & machinery, whan dark invaders

walked our skies and workd w unseen power

& used the Force to stump the silly raiders

of Cosmos who had gone to the other side

& dumbly swung for Chaos 'gainst the Creator's

will. This Davies' 9th's no joke, than Midway sd

but hath a certain twang of Richard Strauss

leastways at's how it struck me in the head.

3.15.16