Holy Cow, Folks! The Buzz Revisited and Revised Is a Long Poem!

Potential Cover for Dewey Lynn Gets Arrested

Yes, sir or madam, you see that correctly! Dewey Lynn Gets Arrested is the fourth book that I have published over this summer break from classes. I have not received a proof copy yet, so it may have a lot of editing yet to be done, but I think the cover is done.

Please don't forget that I also have the three books below available at Lulu.com. Essential Words: Revised is still being reviewed for global distribution as is Aunt Charlotte's Crib. That means, if approved, they will be available in most online bookstores where you might get cheaper shipping and handling than at Lulu. If I order multiple copies, I can get a good deal on the shipping, but then, unless I see you somewhere, I have to pay to ship it to you, and we've not saved any money.

Also, I finally figured out why Walk with Words was rejected for global distribution. I do not have the ISBN number in the text on the copyright page. I have the PNG of the ISBN. I can only fix that by creating another version of the book. I may do that someday soon because I like the shiny matte finish on the cover rather than the flat finish.

So...to today's revised poem. I have revised The Buzz so many times that I cannot recount them all. However, I have done it one more time. I have taken out all of the notes, so some of the content may need explanation. The Buzz mimics about one hundred other poems and works by authors as various as T. S. Eliot, Alexander Pope, Walt Whitman, John Ashbery, the Book of Matthew, especially the Sermon on the Mount, Buddha's Fire Sermon, and Dante, but not The Inferno. I can't think of the name of his other work about the geometer--Nuova Vita, maybe.

Anyway, if you would like to know what some of the things mean in the poem, please feel free to email me at mbt1966@yahoo.com. I am more than happy to discuss the poem. Here it is--and it is a long one--AND it doesn't have much rhyme or meter after the first part--ON PURPOSE. ENJOY!

The Buzz Revisited and Revised Again

These unworldly silences speak

Of the random order that Was

And not of the godhead we seek

In the unpronounced name The Buzz.

All is taboo when All is art,

Else is predictably wicked or worse.

A man awakes with a dream in his heart,

A mark on his forehead bearing the curse.

Cursing still, the myth is shattered,

And truth dissolves in whirling Dust.

Creation is the thought that mattered

And all The Buzz that ever was.

The rousing rain and willing sun

Seduce moist blooms and bulging stems

To breed and seed with senses stunned.

Am I to grow such thoughtless limbs?

One among millions, mindless bliss,

One among millions, vine and creep,

One among millions that bees kiss,

One among millions craving sleep.

Yet sleep is not consistent with The Buzz,

Even if I barely do remember.

Waking dreams blossom to sentient fuzz;

Quaking lips burn with an ancient ember.

Consulting Self, I’m sure to find

A balanced bit of reason in my breast.

A potent impulse magnifies my mind

To godlike powers it can mimic best.

I sing the fan electric that nightly sings to me

For its harmony protects the fidgeting of my brain,

For its noise hears what I do not want to

And filters it,

For it causes me to sleep even when I have no dreams.

Oh! Hardened steel skeleton!

Oh! Durable plastic fan arms!

Oh! Three-speed magnetized motor!

My mind is overwhelmed with your indifference,

And I sleep in the midst of livid schemes!

No more mocking!  All is lost!

The Art belongs to me! But at what cost?

Now that I have a craft to sell,

You may well ask, “What is It?”

When I get back into my shell,

We’ll pay The Buzz a visit

While all the buyers come and go

Discussing Parmigianino.

And there is no time to revise

Nor time for the taking of tea.

Reading the signs might not be wise.

This Buzz was meant for me.

Know thyself, then; all thought is calm,

Your silence is holiness,

And prayer feeds a desolate palm

When praising emptiness.

The Buzz is frenzied, overjoyed,

Singing, crying, laughing, reaching

Out of the convalescent void

Into the mad prophet’s teaching.

Mad prophets?  Now, there is a buzz!

A sense sublime speaking through

An inner voice like conscience does.

What else have slighted gods to do?

Tomorrow, Art will be undone,

And folks will have no need to fear

The flippant hymns of old-school fun

New poets hate, but long to hear.

Nor will I rhyme,

Nor keep consistent meter,

Nor be politically correct,

Nor admit there’s a buzz outside my mind.

Part I: The Burial of the Head

Abusus non tollit usum: The misuse of a thing such as poetry is not an argument against its proper use.

New forms learn arrogance,

Sleeping like babes under woolen blankets,

Sweating, and smelling of violets.

Talcum dries the moisture

Of sweet and rapid growth.

Poets feed the budding need to understand

Through nipples of paper and ink

Like our mother’s own tongue-worn breasts.

We wring the milk, seeping with dreams

Like spring rain down thatched eaves.

One drop, one word, caught in the web

Of a bright rainbow

Almost never reaches the ground,

Almost fails to pepper the dust,

Because we bound it to our thoughts.

Welcome to the big empty world!

Drip like drops on a daisy!

Eat fruit to make the milk sweet.

Eat crow to whip up bitter cream.

Form figures from the Dust

To make the breath of What It Was.

Non sum qualis eram.

I am not what I used to be.

Muddy ditches, swollen rivers,

Hollow boxes holding empty letters,

Barren wombs enjoying pointless pleasure

Of humming, buzzing, breeding, aimless ease.

I lay on my right side for three days

To show people that foes are approaching.

In three years, they will build siege-works.

My words are dreams that wet the dust.

I lay on my left side for three days.

In three years, the fortress walls will fall.

The people will be eating dust.

I walked naked for seven days.

For seven years, the people will suffer as slaves

But on the third day of the eighth year,

I will be pure again,

And the people will believe the vision.

But, what does the buzz reckon for me?

I saw flowers with three petals,

One for each stage of crafting life:

Innocence, Practice, and Patience.

I eat them slowly for a while.

Each is sweet and trimmed with bees.

Yes! Bees buzzing hither and thither.

The workers and pubescent queens

Sleeping in combs of honeyed dreams,

Eating nectar and creamy pollen,

Bursting and thrusting at the seams

Like shy, secreted succubi,

Giving Samson his fierce riddle

Before razing the pagan temple.

The taste becomes stiff like metal,

Like a tent stake through Sisera’s head,

Like blood in the Nile’s waters,

Like a bronze viper hung on a cross,

Or silver tarnished by a step-daughter’s dance.

Oh, no! Oh, I fear I must stop!

I have tasted too much death!

The petals need to feed the breathless dust!

Then, I eat the bud of Eastertide,

Lilies bark bright and yellow,

“One will suffer; all shall live.”

This is meant to keep the buzz alive.

I felt the wind blow in three directions.

One whirls high in rocky dreams.

There, words drip in luminous streams.

One breathes deep in the heart of sea.

There, salty words seal wounded souls.

One is life for ashes and dust.

All words are formed of will.  Eli! Eli!

He spoke his Word, and the wind died.

The wicked were embalmed in ice.

Their words are mist and crystallize

As if they might say something there

That He does not want me to hear.

I do not know their words of ice,

Those frozen watery words,

Petrified in pride and doubt.

However, I always knew

The Unknown God was a poet,

For when He sings of Eastertime,

Life springs full-grown from whittled stone,

And all the angels rock and roll.

Part II: Mating

Do not wave this goddess aside.

Her tenderness may be contrived,

But she will be a proper bride.

With stumps for legs, where is our hope?

With nubs for arms, how do we dare?

There is no intercourse with her,

But marriage does not need a hole.

It wants a space to share.

I believe the idol has lips

That redden with rousing pleasure

While a phantom of randiness

Moans within her insane parts.

 Her marble lungs draw no breath

Across a solid marble tongue.

Her perfect round and weightless breasts

Could taste like ambrosia.

Her flat and hairless, marble V

Sprouts an elegantly snaking spine

That connects to a neck

That causes pious heads to turn.

Her hair is rich and lushly thick,

Like a sponge for sopping my sins,

But it is solid as a stone.

How would she drape

It across my soft pink body?

Woman, heal yourself!  Grow some arms!

Make yourself some legs to wrap

Around my pulsing thighs!

Are you cold? Are you dead, dead cold?

Do not say I am stiff and prudish,

Or we would have a paradox

For my parts stand at the ready

Though I am confused about

How I can finish the deal.

Change her eyes; the eyes must be changed.

Tell her, Father, restore the eyes.

In that soulless depth of pure white,

I can see the water flowing

Miles and miles to the edge of the earth.

She is not thinking about me.

She’s falling into empty space.

Her ship with seven swollen sails

Goes over the edge, not plunging,

But gliding above some vain sea,

And, plainly, she does not love me!

“Ah! But, my love, we have a contract.”

Someday, her arms and feet will grow,

And I will trade tits for tats,

And all her parts will be made whole.

My words of love will lave her limbs

And melt her heart of marbled ice.

Someday, the sting of my poetry

Will swell her inspired fertility

And I will ride her ‘round the world.

She does not love me!  Yet I think,

The dust is sleeping at her feet.

Part III. The Sermon of the Hound

We are the dogs that feed on the crumbs--Matthew 15: 26-28

Blessed be the trickle of streams over rocks

And the many scents of life around the pool.

Blessed be the drifting sheets of morning fog

In the breezes above the squirming trees.

Blessed be the silent hound, holding his bay

At the senseless chatter of clownish squirrels.

Blessed be the hunt.

The hound does not come before the Master.

He sends me ahead to find what’s there.

When I say, “Come! Something’s here!”

Sometimes he will,

But he often whistles me back to him.

He knows that I would track the faintest scent

To Hell

Because I keep my nose to the ground.

I do not worry about my meals.

I hunt, and the master feeds me.

If I do not hunt, the master still feeds me.

I carry his commands close to my heart:

1.       Come.

2.      Stay.

3.      Go.

4.      No.

5.      Sit.

6.      Hush.

7.       Get in.

8.      Get out.

9.      Fetch.

10.    Give.

But greater than all commands is “Listen.”

The master’s loving hand upon my head

Is better than a cool drink of water.

The master’s happy voice in my ears

Is better than a warm, lumpy gravy.

The safe and playful shouts of his children

Are better than a meaty shoulder bone.

To run and hear his footsteps follow

Is better than a day of sunny sleep.

The coyotes sing of deities long dead.

My master is the subject of my song

Who will not be forgotten while I breathe.

I sing:

Blessed be the hound who does his master’s will.

Blessed be the hunt.

Blessed be the essence of our prey.

Blessed be the buzz of spirits in my ears,

The wind in my face, and the sun on my back.

Blessed be the master first and then, his hound.

Part IV. If by Water

Thomas the near-sighted doubter

Walked on the face of the water

And peered into its murky depths.

Oooo oooo ouch!

The piercing prick of a splinter,

The burden of creation,

And the weight of separation

Hurts me deep within the linter

Of the fuzz of my first ginning.

Land and Sea and Light and Chaos

Form the angst of unborn masses

Of atheists and pessimists,

Poets who feel the movement

In the deep, dangerous waters.

They crown the misfit swimmer,

Unseen Leviathan as their king,

King of the Dead and King of Frogs,

Birthed in brine and water-logged.

He never sees the sky nor sod

And worships wind as the one true god.

He cannot produce an heir

Nor harken to a vassal’s prayer.

He rolls in sea and sand and must

Have never known a life of Dust.

Second Thomas, the devotee,

Produces pious poetry

And walks upon the empty graves

Of water sprites, mermaids, and nymphs.

I can only mention these three,

Thomas, Second Thomas, and Leviathan.

Water returns to the Sea,

The Word finds a buoyant Faith,

And my Soul dwells in a skeleton made

From Dust, which will be recompensed.

Part V. From the End, Beginning

Who is the lone geometer

Measuring a circle

And tracing line on line

Who does not find himself

At the center of the hole he has drawn?

He sighs, he moans, he cries and pouts,

But finds a stirring of stone

In the sphere where he digs and dies.

With wings of Dust and spit,

He once explored the Mount of Will

But found no water on the hill,

Only the “dead mountain,”

The ghosts of the forgotten,

Walking on the waterless mountain.

Dejected, he sketched more circles

That spiraled down and down

Into the bowels of stone

Until he lost the sense of rhythm.

BUZZ!

The sun and stars presumed to move,

Propelled by the torments of Love,

But, with no love, he lies down

In the dust he’s carved from  the stone.

BUZZ!

A legless woman fiddles. Yes!

And tinkling strings of horsehair tighten,

So that the wind, a northern gale,

Sings across the tuned threads.

These strings, plucked one at a time,

Like petals from a daisy, hum

And somehow, he senses them.

Humming and droning, he hears their song.

He learns to mock their chords.

Rock and no rock, the oath of stone,

Is rocked and rolled away,

And breath is given to Dust

From The Movement on The Waters.

Creation is All that ever mattered

And All The Buzz that ever was.