Dedicatory Explanation
Note on the intended use of Judy’s Jungle:
The poem is a big concerto of sorts,
comprised of, from, and for the following voices:
Judy – either a female voice bearing this name
or a male narrator surnamed Judy
(unitalicized and without quotation marks);
Emily Dickinson – perched high at her window
in Amherst (unitalicized and in
quotations); and, variously, the unconscious,
the “big Other” of symbols and of language, or,
simply, God (the italicized portions).
The stanzaic arrangement has been adapted
from Brian Eno’s song, “Back in Judy’s Jungle”
(on the Taking Tiger Mountain album).
For Pam, who never solders an abyss with air.
* * *
In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls – began to tell –
Creation seemed a mighty Crack –
To make me visible –
-- Emily Dickinson, from #891
I.
Saturday morning.
Nothing to do once again.
Just me and my notebook.
That’s the way to begin when you’re nobody!
Emily thought so.
In Amherst. Perhaps it was fall.
Gazing out from her window.
Meadowy sprawl.
“Linnets – or Poodles?
Topics for Angels – or Serfs?”
Just setting a meter…
it demands perspiration and diligence.
“Haven’t you ever –
attempted to place – in a Trance –
a Gazelle – or a Codpiece?
Look at them Dance!”
One could go crazy,
counting the ways that they fail.
I’m speaking of language –
or the words that comprise it, preciselier…
Oops! More precisely.
You’ll say that’s a strong case in point.
Damn! The habitat’s leaky.
Helluva joint!
“Never assume that the Windows are Closed –
nor that the Floor is Complete.
Often there’s less there than what was Supposed –
and sometimes it’s missing its Feet!
Pitching Conundrums and threading through Loopholes
is largely Analogy’s Bane –
so try not to make it too Sensical now –
you won’t see the Sand thro’ the Grain!”
That was quaffed from quite a spout;
that’s to say, it soothed her pupils.
But she couldn’t read it out,
so we posted a refrain.
II.
Gotta start over,
try it again and again –
the colorless outset.
“Did Creation begin as a Wedding?
Or was it an Auction –
to sell off some Titan’s Estate?”
This is what we are left with.
Isn’t it great?
Elements – Laughter –
Sex and Catastrophes – Food –
Dick Clark in the ‘60’s –
an American Bandstand – its Psalmists –
then Elvis in Vegas.
Now – is there anything left?
See them exiting Graceland –
mute and bereft.
There. Half a trinket.
Summon it onto the page.
A gift from the gift bag.
And you know what old Freud thought of giftgiving!
“Horrid – we first gave
to Mother and Father our Turds
as Advance on such Presents
as were our Words!”
Johnny enjoyed them because of their Stink –
Mary because they were Brown.
After we sudsed up our Hands in the Sink –
we flushed them and watched them go Down.
Later we opened our Easels – our Incense –
and stacked up our Building Blocks high.
And now – when stray Skidmarks are seen in the Bowl –
we Shudder and venture a Sigh!
Though the groom was but a lad,
he ignored the tailored pedants.
First “I do” and then “Egad!”
Then the bride began to cry.
III.
“Moses was banished –
Israel got there alone –
To Canaan they hobbled…”
And it took them a good hundred years or so.
Seventy maybe.
It seems I forget quite a bit
of the text that we’re based on.
Holiest Writ.
Springsteen averred it
way back in ’78:
Our Song is our Gospel.
That’s to say, each is one with the other.
The Land that was Promised
some three or four thousand years back –
it is ours for the having.
Ready? Attack!
“History’s Santa
grants us again and again
the Things that we’ve taken.”
If the bag gets a hole then we’ll stitch it up.
Yearly recycling
allows us to gather our Trash –
send it back through the Chimney.
Annual Bash!
“Mary descended the Staircase with Stealth –
and Johnny was close at her Heel.
Stockings were filled – ‘neath the Tree lay a Wealth
of Plunder removed from the Real.”
Mayflower Planks and Geronimo Bones
that were beveled and lacquered and drilled –
infused with a Whiff of Industrial Scents.
And that’s how the Stockings were filled!
If your Motive be impure –
give it back to Him that owns it –
for Possession isn’t sure
‘ere the Barren Land be tilled.
IV.
“Death is a Purchase –
bartering Thing and Event
for all that Collapses –
overthrown in the Dervish of Happenstance.
Death is an Auction –
a Stop-gap, an End, a Refrain –
an Escape from Beginnings,
Hope and a Name.”
Emily does this –
does it again and again.
Confuses her objects
and the verbs which are used to deliver them.
Either we lose it
(our name) or it’s gained when we die –
so they’ll ask of our Trinkets,
“Who were they by?”
Beethoven – Ghandi –
Mr. Magoo – Malcolm X –
Napoleon – Chaplin –
and Leone’s unmonikered Eastwood…
He rides into town and
commences – The Man With No Name,
his Identity hidden.
Such is his Game.
Has he forgotten the Name he was called –
or is he a Spectre from Hell
who robs from his Peter to pay to his Paul
such Change as he scrapes from each Well?
Slipping his Noose and confuting the Census –
the Good and the True and the Same.
But who would suspect that he’s fleeing his names –
in search of their Capital Name?
We assumed them as they fell,
but we failed to grasp their senses.
There was nothing left to tell,
so we pried them from their frame.
V.
“Difficult instant –
Poetry’s Wedding with Love.
For either it happens –
or they fall in a slim Perpetuity,
one from the other,
and think that it never occurred –
that it folded before
the Conjugal Word.
Terrible Thunder,
never remembered again –
though heard of and told of.
Its Recovery lasts the Millennia,
comes to Completion
in dim Suppositions of Light
at the end of this Tunnel.”
Call it our plight.
“Nobody’s certain
whether it happened in Time –
or whether the Scripture
was removed like a Rib from another World.
Others opine that
it’s rather a Havoc of Script
that fell out with the Weather.”
Paradise Stripped!
Satan assembled his Legions in Rows
and marshaled them onto the Fields.
“I can’t tell Creation apart from its Throes –
am blind to the Spot where it yields.
But each time I speak my sweet Badness doth creep
from around and below and above.”
Then Milton remarked, gazing down on his poem,
“I cannot tell making from love!”
Fate’s a bitter Pill, it’s true –
so we’re bound to have it sweetened.
As with Love it gives no Clue
whence it comes or what it’s of.
VI.
“Exiting Eden –
leaving it Day after Day,
that Old-Fashioned Homestead –
though it’s true that we little suspected it –
never acknowledged
the Place that we fancy our Home
as our Paradise Broken,
seen through the Gloam.”
How we got this far,
nobody’s bothered to ask.
But when did we exit?
It’s a question that plagues us from time to time.
Could we return there?
Rewind the unraveling Yarn?
But the Hay is a’kindling.
Fire the Barn!
That’s how the World goes –
rather a Blaze than a Bang.
We’ll smoke up the Cinders –
then we’ll legalize Weed & Hilarity,
roll it with Patience
and seal it firm with a Lick,
put a Match to the Taper.
Beautiful Stick!
Setting afloat friendly Wisps through their Lungs,
they yawned and repaired to their Hives,
consulted the Scribes on the Uppermost Rungs
on Knowledge and how it best thrives.
“Where are its Sources? And can it be accessed
from furthest Remotes of the New?”
The Scribes didn’t answer but laughed to themselves
and swilled their Oracular Brew.
Home is where the Dream unfolds –
else it withers off its Axis.
One might say it hardly holds
when the Hearth is set askew.
VII.
How to get back there…
That’s what we hymn through the years –
and what it would cost us.
“Is the Bargeman infernal? Benevolent?
Wide is the Water!”
Of that much at least we are sure.
“Is the Proof of the Crystal
Muddy – or Pure?
“Memory grants us
much that Remembrance can’t touch –
a Myth and a Homestead –
and a Wish that’s forever eluding us…
or we’re evading
in Efforts to get there again.
But we get there – it’s certain!”
Question is, when?
Drums and Pianos –
Mandolins, Fiddles, Guitars –
a Nightingale’s Descant –
and a few sleepy Conches with Sitting-Room.
Call it an Evening!
We’ll settle ourselves ‘neath the Moon
on the Lawns of our earthly,
heavenly Tune.
“Home is a Pastime as pleasant as Song –
although Now and Then we forget
where is the Portal, the Chimney, the Gong,
the Figures, the Key and the Fret.”
After the Players returned to their Wives
they exhausted their Loins in the Sheets.
And though they surrendered their Mallets, their Bows,
their Dreams re-rehearsed the Repeats.
Call me to my Tune, my Dear!
Rock me gently, sweet Eliza!
Home is where I rest my Gear.
Grant me, Love, your supple Feats.
VIII.
“Treacherous Crevice!
Perilous Gap in the Old –
with what shall we fill you?
Quite a Chore to discern where your Limits are!”
Evil Knieval:
He vaulted a Split in the Earth,
was endorsed for a Million.
What was it worth?
“Cracks are like Mountains,
climbed just because they are there –
as if we were driven
to accouter our own Inner Emptiness
with a Reminder
of something we’d designate Need…”
which degenerates further
into our Greed!
Citadel Furnished –
sequel to Paradise Stripped –
our Postmodern Venue.
For a Quarter the Dragon will spit at you
Fire and Brimstone
verbatim from John 3:19 –
or eternalized Hubris
ala James Dean.
X-Mart was run to the ground by the Banks,
and now it is owned by 3T.
But Loss coincided with building more Tanks.
The Labor from X put to Sea.
The Coasts are now clear, Circulation is fine,
lasting Peace has returned to the Real.
The Left sidles up to the Right once again –
Result of the new Newest Deal.
At the Bottom of the Range
lived a greedy King named Midas.
Tin to Gold he couldn’t change,
so he horded up his Steel.
IX.
“Maybe it never
happens the same Way it did
the First Time it happened.”
Lend an ear as she thinks through Eternity…
“Could be it varies
in some Way – like placing a Chute
at an End or the Middle,
switching the Fruit,
trimming the Budget,
mixing Genera around,
allowing Improvement
in successive Returns of Creation
to Chapter One, Verse One –
Genetic Revision. Each Time
it’s a costlier Rework.”
Spare us a Dime?
Like to contribute.
‘Fraid I can’t muster the rent.
Eternity’s Coffers
empty out at each new, ever Bigger Bang.
Guess that I’ll give them
as much of my Corpse as is left…
if they leave me with that much.
Corporal Theft!
Gabriel’s Trumpet was heard all around,
and Ghouls from their Caskets did rise.
I opened mine without making a Sound
and soon found myself in the Skies.
Millions of Billions ascending to Godstock –
the End of each Where and each When…
But then they informed us we’d botched up the Job:
“Go back. You must do it again!”
Don’t forget to pack your Bones
(Resurrection is a Potluck).
Crack of Doom we’ll hear the Stones,
then the Dead come on at Ten.
X.
“Socrates, Plato…
What they have taught me is this:
Be faithful to Nonsense –
It’s the best Way to succor your Nobody.
Why would you wish to
be Someone who screams to a Bog
every Morning through Evening –
just like a Frog!”
What she is saying,
if you are listening on,
is “Learning is useless
for acquiring stray Pieces of Info.
It’s rather a Method
of clearing the Slate in your Mind,
clapping Chalk into Dustbins,
airing the Rind…
Reading should teach you
never to read in the Stars
the Lives of your Neighbors
(those that gab as they’re hanging their Linens
at Six in the Morning) –
that is, we are taught not to know
past the Threadings of Logos.
See how they grow!”
Derrida reached Heaven’s Gates after Nine.
They gave him a Puzzle to do.
He looked up at Peter and started to whine.
They clamped on a Muzzle. “You’re through!
You claimed “All is Writing” but never stopped yapping
with Words spewing forth from your Jaw.
The Colleges rather believed “All is Speech”
and paid you to prove it as Law!”
How that man could shoot the Bull!
Rarely did it catch him napping.
Loud and gabby as a Rule,
now he shut his Trap in Awe.
XI.
“Vitalist Needle!
Wondrous cylindrical Shaft,
about which the World turns!
Can you say what salubrious Lubricant
keeps you in Action?
Creation doth never get stuck –
though at times we espy Her
down on Her Luck.
How was the Axle
set in the Motion it’s in?
The Oil of Faeries!”
Have you guessed it’s Ideals she’s speaking of?
“Radial Motion
is given a Push in the Real
by these Cranial Hoodlums.”
What do they steal?
Innocence? Knowledge?
Patience, Enjoyment or Trust?
Land? One’s Beginnings?
Or a Life free of Guilt, Disillusionment,
Malice from Strangers
(or towards them…be that as it may),
and a Clock that will only
lead to Decay?
Dali looked up at his Painting with Glee.
“By God, it will hang in the Louvre!”
His Sense of Arrangement had boldly run free.
A Timepiece had slopped out of Groove.
Time’s quite a Theme, but if I had been Dali,
I think I’d have chosen a Fork
to comment in suchwise on Hunger and Eats.
(It hangs on a wall in New York.)
What’s she saying? Is it true?
Freedom’s but a Carrot? Golly!
No – it’s quite a Fizzy Brew.
Careful where you aim the Cork!
XII.
“Emerson came here
Thursday a Week before last.
He showed little In’trist
in the Verses of meek little Emily.
Truth is, I shunned to
approach Him, engage His Rapport
with my odd, craggy Buildings,
lest He would Snore.
Dickinson’s Second!
That’s how his First introduced
the Mouse unto Waldo –
and He smiled as I offered my Paw to Him…
No Time for Chatting!
Come into the Pantry, my Dear!
Mother put me to Cookies –
What did she Fear?
No One to Someone –
that’s what I am unto Him.
To catch His Attention…
but again, to be Someone is Dreariness.
Next time He visits,
I’ll lower a Poem on a String,
which He’ll claim on a jingly
Bell that I’ll ring.”
Puritan Concord was taken aback.
“Reliance is born of the Self.”
Four-score since Midwives had burned on the Wrack,
the Elect had elected to Pelf.
Some Years ago I went trekking through Walden
and looked for the Stove and the Pipe.
Thoreau’s last Descendants were passing a Joint.
“You want some? Jamaican! It’s ripe!”
“That Kowalkski’s gonna pay!”
steamed a sweaty Karl Malden.
Brando quipped, “She’s quite a Leigh!”
as Kazan began to gripe.
XIII.
“Cranial Muscle –
Deity’s Substance and Heft –
Divinity’s Engine –
God’s the Sound of which you are the Syllable!
Where is the Cleavage
dividing what’s said from what’s heard,
what is thought from what’s uttered,
Spirit from Word?
Where do they differ?
Is there a Well-spring, a Source,
a Depth or Horizon
where the One empties into the Other?
And does the Horizon
consist of some third sort of Thing?
Is it brittle, tenacious,
Metal or String?
Theories will only
render these Thoughts that I have
in other Arrangements –
though Arrangement itself leads to Entity.
See my Horizon?
An Image where Sound enters Word,
twisting First into Second.
Call it the Third!”
Hegel explained to his Maid as she swept,
“Aufhebung’s a way to escape
from some evil Wiederspruch in which one’s kept
from clasping the Truth by its Nape!”
He peered in her Bodice, gazed down through the Cleavage
of two antithetical Mounds.
She said, “Bitte, Georg! Jetzt hebst du mich auf!”
Occasion provided no Grounds.
Thesis and Antithesis:
One is merry, one is peevish.
From them ravels Synthesis
onto ever higher Bounds.
XIV.
“Audience?” Granted.
“Presence?” Petition denied.
It’s Deity’s Priv’lidge –
Entertainment without the Admittance
of those with no Radars
to glean what Perception doth miss…”
…or mistakes for its Feedback –
Deity’s Hiss!
“Brave little Pinnace!
Prayer goes angling for Gods,
the Depths of Poseidon
as of yet never plumbed. Does it master them?
Specular Fishes.
We study them prinking the Brine
of the Medial Claret.
Heavenly Wine!
Deity audits,
though it appears to be dumb.
We cast all our Speeches
thro’ the Wilds of an Infinite Medium
maybe we’re Part of…”
…perhaps the rejected Last Scraps
that the Universe vomits
onto its Paps!
Pantagruel fell off Gargantua’s lap.
It shook through the Hills all around.
He blubbered on being awoke from his Nap,
and Steeples collapsed at the Sound.
Rabelais muttered, “It’s fun and humane
and will give my Franciscans a Laugh.
However, my Thirst needs Replenishment now.
I’m off to The Bibulous Calf!”
Myth regathers on its Cloaks,
blanketed on purplish Raiment,
held aloft by gleaming Spokes.
Babel sleeps – a blind Giraffe.
XV.
“I am the Letter –
Destiny’s Note to the World.
But No One doth read me
nineteen Centuries after Our Savior came.
Trust in the Weather
to bless Agricultural Man
with illiterate Offspring.
Barbarous Clan!
I am the Message
telegrammed out of the Real.
Goliath may read me
and be taken aback by the Circumstance
of his ungainly
Approach that I’ll turn to Good Use
to convey us both Downwards
(he’s the Caboose!) –
down from Parnassus,
out of the Rare and Refined
and back to Beginnings –
to the sweet Carolingian
Graces and Topos.
My David will give him a Slap
on his buttocky Bottom.
Seraphs will clap!”
Poverty rendered him up to the North,
and Reebok’s discovered his Game.
Now Philadelphia owns half the Worth
of Six Foot and Nothing of Fame.
Iverson feigned through the Paint for a Lay-up
and twisted around for the Dunk.
O’Neal glanced over at Kobe and scoffed,
“He did it – the slick little Skunk!”
David crowned Goliath good,
though the Blood was simply Make-up.
Then he turned and donned his Hood,
filled his Belly and got drunk.
Coda
Saturday morning.
Day before God took a Break.
The Thick of Creation.
Not yet Time to look back with Misgivings
concerning the Edges
that couldn’t be tucked in the Fold
or the Filth it was stained with.
Nebulous Mold.
Permanent Sabbath.
That’s what it felt like before
I had this Idea.
Can’t remember what silly Thought prompted me.
No Time for Worry.
It seems that there’s Nothing to do
but continue this Doing
‘til it is through.
Everything pleased me
up to the Time I conceived
this ruinous Monkey
who like me can enact Transformation
through All I’ve created –
can even unravel the Ends
and displace the Beginnings,
spot where it bends
over upon Mensuration’s Defeat –
those Holes where Collapse splits the Frame
and Nothing takes hold so that Things can’t repeat
or follow their Path to their Name.
Infinite Darkness where no one can say if
it’s Time or it’s Fate or Despair.
Those Points where it seems that I’ve given up Hope,
where Making no longer doth air.
And he’ll learn to blast his own
Nothings through what I’ve created,
rip it so it can’t be sewn.
Is this more than I can bear?
Too late now – I’ve set him loose.
Let him think it’s his, the Caitiff.
Crack of Doom, he’ll spot my Ruse.
And he’ll find me waiting there!
Have to think just what I’ll say.
“See? You’re with Creation fated.
Have you spoiled your Field of Play,
thinking it was not your Care?
That will be a Sight to see –
Hordes of Everymen berated.
Think of what they’ll say to me!
“Hast thou, Father, Worlds to spare?
May we have a Second Chance
on a Globe as yet undated?”
Everyman. See how he rants
when at last he’s made aware.
Can I not rewind this Spool?
That’s, however, how it freighted.
Can’t undo what’s done’s the Rule
that I made myself declare
when I started this Shebang,
ere I had it Sized and Traited,
fitted out with Prong and Fang,
Why and How and When and Where.
Could it be I’ve got it wrong?
Maybe I should feel elated.
Is it not what all along
I had reached for through the Glare?
Yes! That’s just the way to think!
Man’s the One whom I’ve awaited!
Out of Nothing, Something’s Brink,
Being’s Edge, Creation’s Dare!
God enjoyed his Seventh Day,
posted Here and There a Bailiff,
asked himself was it okay?
Could he rest upon his Chair?
Ah, he thought, it’s as it is.
I can always shower hail if
this Concoction starts to fizz.
Creation after all’s my Biz!
* * *
[Extended ritardando.]
And he saw that, through his Flaw,
Universe was at a Draw.
He had scraped the Rare, the Raw.
Man was Being’s Inner Claw.
Yes, he’d touched the Raw, the Rare,
Good and Evil (quite a Pair!).
And he found it held his Awe,
as it jived with what he saw.
So he smiled and made it Law,
as he pondered through the Glare.
Sunday’s Orb began to flare,
and he saw that it was fair.
And he said that it was fair,
as he found that it was fair.
For he felt that it was fair,
and he thought that it was fair,
and he saw that it was fair.
Yes, he saw that it was fair,
and he saw that it was fair,
and he saw that it was fair,
that it was fair.
[Pause. A tempo.]
“Is Eden’s innuendo, ‘If you dare?’”1
--------------------------------------------
1Emily Dickinson, from #1518. To be uttered, simultaneously and fortissimo, by all three speakers (Judy, Emily, God).