The Gospel According to the Pumpkin's Dance
Dec 5, 2020 21:48:26 GMT -5
vincent, anthony, and 3 more like this
Post by Roshan on Dec 5, 2020 21:48:26 GMT -5
I think I wrote this in 1990. Our scene was centered around a large open mic run by the most magnetict person I've ever known. Everyone was a little in love with Matthew and it was really special, and we were believers.The poem came to me spontaneously but I wanted to elaborate on a couple of images and I never could finish it though occasionally over the years I'd come across it in my papers and give it another go. It will never be finished but someone asked to see it so I'll put it here first and a bit more about our scene below it.
* * *
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE PUMPKIN'S DANCE
He saw a [publican] named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom : and he saith unto him Follow me. And he arose, and followed him -- St. Matthew, 9:9
He chooses the pumpkin patch that is most sincere.-- Charles M. Schultz
The night speaks to Matthew and he spins us cavalcades of mandarins
carnival music and patchwork quilts
and the moon tells him its wizardry, it makes him its magician
and he charms us with its rivers and its pumpkin patch cascades.
Matthew dancing bells and rings round Saturn's rings he's saying
nothing will be wasted
kingdom come is coming
face it
hurry
nothing is defaced now of the magic marmalade.
I will take you to Aladdin on the shadow of my braid
Catch my coat of color tails and sail to sunrise
Come with me!
And we trail his flying carpet on to where the orange dances
knowing we are Matthew's fanfare and that he is the parade
As the night dances bright lights round saint Matthew's bonny face, he's saying
wait for the millennium
expect the unexpected
grapevine
brocade lords and ladies
for the moon beam streams go merry round the ferris of my eyes
and she waxing sings to me of nectarines.
I will weave you spools of melons and of cobweb filigree
and tambour peals and spinning wheels whose spinning
follows me!
And all of us wait for a sign from his eyes
as the moon resonates in his voice unexpected
from the beaming loom of the tangelo tree
and the room sings follow me!
to the winding accordion
ob the shores of childhood
and the dancing monkey
and the bent over man
with the toucan on his shoulder.
And the moonman dances sleight of hand round Matthew's days and ways
and his pathways lead the organ grinders past the orange grove.
But the morning comes and it was only the room spinning
only Matthew and the pumpkin patch at work.
And all the royal finery was only flesh
and lochards in waiting with baited breath
for a touch of the emcee's new robes, hands enmeshed
intertwined into vines to grope only flesh and
rapunzel reapunzel but we didn't know it yet.
Rapunzel rapunzel let down your long
flesh to the garbage can dreams of St. Vitus's dance sung to
flesh spinning truths out of flesh spinning lies
brimming over the rim of sheherezade's
thousand waste paper baskets whose wax paper gods
spew forth streamers and serpentine ribbons of oz
and confetti festoonings that wind and unwind
on the memory floor that parades leave behind
where an idiot moon dumped down beams on the fair
for junkmen to rummage for golden calves.
and the fading moon gapea from its place in the air
like a leering jack o'lantern ever burning ever grinning
at its scooped out pulp disgorged, its own discarded innards.
Hallow squash of self-love and of bright self-righteous giving
scalpeled slung and tossed aside with love's self-loathing rhythm
carved out carver brazen image
of the byzantine precision of its own indifference.
And all of us scavenge the morning for signs
of Matthew of the Patchwork where we find him blindly
(eyes spinning truths out of eyes creaming lies).
May
your candles ever rise our ragged faces to the sky.
The waxworks tumbles down but clusters round the flame that is inside
of the Persian carpet bagger,
peanut hawker of our dreams.
O Great
Publican at Customs.
(but the most sincere).
* * *
THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE PUMPKIN'S DANCE
He saw a [publican] named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom : and he saith unto him Follow me. And he arose, and followed him -- St. Matthew, 9:9
He chooses the pumpkin patch that is most sincere.-- Charles M. Schultz
The night speaks to Matthew and he spins us cavalcades of mandarins
carnival music and patchwork quilts
and the moon tells him its wizardry, it makes him its magician
and he charms us with its rivers and its pumpkin patch cascades.
Matthew dancing bells and rings round Saturn's rings he's saying
nothing will be wasted
kingdom come is coming
face it
hurry
nothing is defaced now of the magic marmalade.
I will take you to Aladdin on the shadow of my braid
Catch my coat of color tails and sail to sunrise
Come with me!
And we trail his flying carpet on to where the orange dances
knowing we are Matthew's fanfare and that he is the parade
As the night dances bright lights round saint Matthew's bonny face, he's saying
wait for the millennium
expect the unexpected
grapevine
brocade lords and ladies
for the moon beam streams go merry round the ferris of my eyes
and she waxing sings to me of nectarines.
I will weave you spools of melons and of cobweb filigree
and tambour peals and spinning wheels whose spinning
follows me!
And all of us wait for a sign from his eyes
as the moon resonates in his voice unexpected
from the beaming loom of the tangelo tree
and the room sings follow me!
to the winding accordion
ob the shores of childhood
and the dancing monkey
and the bent over man
with the toucan on his shoulder.
And the moonman dances sleight of hand round Matthew's days and ways
and his pathways lead the organ grinders past the orange grove.
But the morning comes and it was only the room spinning
only Matthew and the pumpkin patch at work.
And all the royal finery was only flesh
and lochards in waiting with baited breath
for a touch of the emcee's new robes, hands enmeshed
intertwined into vines to grope only flesh and
rapunzel reapunzel but we didn't know it yet.
Rapunzel rapunzel let down your long
flesh to the garbage can dreams of St. Vitus's dance sung to
flesh spinning truths out of flesh spinning lies
brimming over the rim of sheherezade's
thousand waste paper baskets whose wax paper gods
spew forth streamers and serpentine ribbons of oz
and confetti festoonings that wind and unwind
on the memory floor that parades leave behind
where an idiot moon dumped down beams on the fair
for junkmen to rummage for golden calves.
and the fading moon gapea from its place in the air
like a leering jack o'lantern ever burning ever grinning
at its scooped out pulp disgorged, its own discarded innards.
Hallow squash of self-love and of bright self-righteous giving
scalpeled slung and tossed aside with love's self-loathing rhythm
carved out carver brazen image
of the byzantine precision of its own indifference.
And all of us scavenge the morning for signs
of Matthew of the Patchwork where we find him blindly
(eyes spinning truths out of eyes creaming lies).
May
your candles ever rise our ragged faces to the sky.
The waxworks tumbles down but clusters round the flame that is inside
of the Persian carpet bagger,
peanut hawker of our dreams.
O Great
Publican at Customs.
(but the most sincere).