Russo-Portuguese monickered Ivan Arguelles
|
|
|
(“hip”)
Señor Blues is what they call him,
way down Mexicali way
no day is as remote as this one
nothing on the spectrum but white lies
a continent upside down and reversed
biosphere immersed in dispersed ash
no day more remote than this one
telephone memory of the day it happened
the crash on the unexpected road
the glass breaking in the infinite gyre
the sudden onslaught of fever and madness
inches away from the entrance to hell
the big shot of gasoline and fine perfume
Well he’s tall and good lookin’ and
always knows what to say
no hour more isolated than this one
putting on the finery to strut all “hip”
in marijuana fashion show with mirrors
cut of the cloth all bright red and stamped
buttoned to the nines in black ivory
smoking one big joint of colombian gold
after another jazz hyphenated soul Baby
and the next thing you know BANG
he’s in the emergency room nothing left
to do but hang it out to die
hang it out to die
no minute more distant than this one
it’s not just that he was born that way
he was dead that way from the start
no year too rapid no time cycle too swift
all brilliance and flash way too “cool”
hummingbird alliteration of thought
tripping through Ouspensky’s fourth way
with mojo hand and little John the conqueroo
no instant more remote than this very one
when the universe in a zip-lock bag
disappears in a child’s blind-man’s bluff
what’s all that racket upstairs
who let the wind out of the sack
who picked all the dandelions
who mowed all the summer lawns
who delivered the papers today
who let Pandora open the box
Well he’s tall and good lookin’ and
always knows what to say
Ulysses going home the long sea route
never know when he’s gonna make it
lay with Nausicaa and Circe hot august noon
stayed up all night to count the stars
climbed the aerial stairway to Nirvana
just when Mind altered its dimensions
no now more far off than this now
nickel bag reefer madness cinema
moving faster than the speed of sound
now you see him now you don’t
shadow walking in the mansions of the moon
shadow talking to the chicks along the way
mows ‘em down with his smooth jive
shifting with all the moves of a jazz solo
honking vibrating finger popping bright
this is once in a lifetime
this is really once in a lifetime
but now there is no now left to play
however remote this very day
however distant this very moment
and the next thing you know BANG
he’s in the emergency room nothing left
to do but hang it out to die
hang it out to die
By the time that they love him,
Señor Blues done gone away
03-22-14
*Footnote: the world remembers my twin brother as
“Mayan” Prophet Valum Votan. I really never got
to know the Prophet. To me he was is and always
has been Joe or José, quite simply. In the days of our
coming of age he became hip, a hipster, cool, Man,
a transformation as apparently easy as it was painful,
because it required shedding many skins, evolving
through Huxley’s Doors of Perception into the New
Age Star, the Harmonic Converger, & finally Valum
Votan. On the eve of the 3rd anniversary of his Death
I remember him today as “hip”, the Mexican kid who
became “way too cool”, distance itself.