The Big Beat Speak

I remember whirling lights,
sparks whipping up and spinning out
like frightened fireflies,
tornadoes of intense colour:
orange,
yellow,
red,
white,
flames highlighting sweat,
flashing across your flesh:
breasts,
hips,
arms,
legs -
you dancing life,
you dancing death
the night the Big Beat
chose to speak.

I remember Beelzebub played rubadub
on a big old oil drum
stretched with human skin,
rattled chains strung with teeth.

And the jester,
smelling profit,
set up shop
in the shadows
by the trees,
sold cut-rate crowns of thorns,
musky resins
and scrap metal jewelry.

He showed you how to paint your face
and you paid him with lies
and he died laughing.
We buried him in a shoe box
and nobody remembers
the whereabouts of the grave.

Gypsies told fortunes around the fire
with bubblegum cards,
smoked Lebanese hash,
ate deep-fried American beans
from the can,
and Shakespeare played with snakes
as the tattooed man upped the stakes
the night the Big Beat
chose to speak.

Somebody yelled, “last one in is a rotten egg,”
so everyone ran for the lake.
White asses, like balloons,
bobbed across the beach.
Splashes and shrieks echoed from the cliffs
and I cooked up an omelette.

I watched a thousand bats
writing your name in the night sky.

And Jesus would’ve walked across the water
but he turned it into wine instead
and couldn’t walk a straight line.
He had his time with the waitress
from the Wildcat Cafe anyway.
I know because I heard her
shriek out his name,
“Jesus Christ, ooohhh, Jesus Christ...”

I picked up a 3-string guitar
and sang songs to you from the dock,
watched your ex-lovers drowning,
swept out to sea
until they became little dots...
then nothing.

I remember wondering why tonight,
of all nights, in an endless succession
of nights, why would the Big Beat
choose to speak?

Well,
who can foretell
the convergence of points?
Who can plot with pencil and compass
the turning of all these things?
Who can remember their true names?
And who can profess to understand
the words of the Big Beat
when it chooses to speak?

Hallelujah!
The universe turns inside out
like a dirty old sock
and my innards tighten
against the shock.

Hallelujah!
Comets split the sky.
The cow jumps over the moon.
The clouds roll over us
and the thunder thunders
like Jaco Pastorius.

And not once, but thrice,
the solstice moon is eclipsed,
turning our souls to ice.
Oh!
May the fallen stars rise again.
May the sky bleed.
May the sun bloom.

Hallelujah!
All the old wounds open again
and I weep for the old pain anew,
anew.
The Big Beat speaks.
The Big Beat speaks.
The Big Beat speaks
again.

It’s at times like these, quiet times,
that I roll the past around in my mouth
for a taste of what once was
and I ask unanswerable questions.

How much love has to be lost before
we become completely exhausted?
How many unspeakable things must be spoken
before we are blessed with silence?
And I ask you sister,
where does the time go,
in which direction
and how fast was it moving
when you saw it last?

And I ask,
where is there a sacred place
to bury all my dead?
And I ask,
did you hear the Big Beat speak?
Did you hear the Big Beat speak?
Did you hear the Big Beat speak?
And when
lover,
sister,
friend,
when will it speak
again?