Michael McClure: 'Songheavy (Last Breath Poem)'

SONGHEAVY

    

LAST BREATH POEM

 

After watching human

efforts to save the self-beached

pilot whale at Rockport.

Many times the large dolphin

reversed their efforts and

returned to the strand.

 

TWO TON QUALIA-BEING:

 

globe head

 

SPIKE TEETH

 

all being-receptors

 

RECEPTORS

CONCEIVED

BY

QUALIA

a

l

i

v

e

 

LIVING

 

resonation

 

*x~X~X~x*

 

MEAT

 

RED-BLACK

 

inside

is

 

every where

 

RESONATING

 

slick black

on

sea edge 

 

;;;';;;';''';;

 

MOEBIUS

BULK

BREATHING

HULK

 

this way

 

OF

LIFE

 

CEDING

 

IS

IT

 

the way

 

CON

SCIOUS

NESS

 

VAST

 

HEART

 

ALL BODY

 

SHAPE

 

songheavy

 

VOICE

 

to imagine

 

self-spired

 

SPOUTED

 

i

n

s

p

i

r

e

d

 

death-self

 

(DEATH SELF)

 

FREE

 

to swim

in

non-ever

FOR

EVER

all

bright

 

AFIRE

 

five trillion per nanosecond

 

neuron linking

 

 

in the POD

 

WHAT THREAT --

 

OR FEAR

--OR

DISEASE

--OR

? ?

 

LEADS   NO   WAY

 

to

follow

 

we laugh

together in the torch

 

of wetwave darkness

 

nothing

 

NOTHING NESS

 

needs

this

LIFE

 

and

now

 

we are gone

 

A

TOOTHED

SMILE

 

SMILE

 

IN

THE

 

WAVE

LAP

 

________

________

 

THIS

PROUD

 

RED AND BLACK

 

MEAT

LOVE

 

HEARING-VOICE

 

TREMBLING

 

TO GO

 

[N.B.  A poem, above, that recalls another, “For the Death of 100 Whales,” performed some sixty years ago at the famed Gallery Six reading in San Francisco – a continuation & advance by a poet still at the height of his powers. J.R.]