I Am the Steely Dan of Poetry
Consider soul: etched in the deft
contours of jazz, palpable with static,
in black jungle
swinging with lichens and tongues; the
feverish nap
latitudinal with ghosts. And in the degrees
between or above, absolute
space, squirming color,
a
Southern dawn involving syncopation and
rapture.
To own soul, consider it lacking,
in the act of lack; or acting god, of God.
Cite the sad practitioner, the admitted
journeyman
leaning on the organ, counting to four.
Dull youth and their neo-rapture, not ascending.
Girls with dead eyes
chewing and chewing, legs wide apart.
The executors of soul have several fingers
and generalized ache –
one articulates the wound’s perimeter;
one picks the flesh to bits.
This former, rattling with masonry,
exemplifies, doubts,
illustrates and kneels,
crawls in his tracks; and thus flagellated
into excellence
wipes the table, arranges the fruit.
This is the teeth of singing,
the Jesus of holidays.