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Sound Poems
All words by Kirk Lumpkin © 2007
Poem Titles (click to see words)
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Bone/ Body/ Spirit/ Flower
inspired by the art of Georgia O’Keefe
body of rock
body of water
body of plant
body of house
body of earth
skybone connected
to flaming spirit flowers—
a calm intense blaze
rising within
as we open ourselves
to the world
bone/ body/ spirit/ flower x 8
a calm intense blaze
rising within
as we open ourselves
to the world
bone/ body/ spirit/ flower x 8
bone
body
spirit
flower
bone
body
spirit
flower
Encountering Calder's Mobiles
Click to hear an MP3 of Encountering Calder's Mobiles
At play
in a kinetic
meeting place
an unknown,
but potentially intelligent
possible
life form,
hangs
in a dynamic
equilibrium—
touches
a
poise
in-side,
a great swaying
at the center
of things.
Balanced
at the transmission point
where the stereo's diamond needle
meets the dark whirling disc
sending a ripple of light
glinting through musculature
shining along the back
of a watersnake
swimming just beneath
your skin
its quicksilver trail
of moonlight
quivering
on the night river.
An animal
of silent thunder
dances
through your limbs
riding waves
of spiral spinal electrical current,
alert
as a vaulting gymnast
moving the turning point
through space
where the pinwheeling galaxies
shoot sparkler seeds
that light the instinctual candles
on the altar
at the center
of gravity.
Noodle House
One night down at the noodle house
I was just hangin' around
waitin' for somethin' to happen.
There were a couple of corpses in the corner
but for some reason
that didn't seem to bother me
or anybody else.
It was kind of cold, at first,
but soon we were surrounded
by hot fog
from the simmering, steaming vats of noodles.
Now, they don't make spaghetti here
not rigatoni, linguini, or angel hair pasta
not udon noodles, ramen, or chow fun—
No, this is a different kind of noodle place.
Like a mass of eels
or congregation of nightcrawlers
they begin writhing in their own juices
multiplying
like cellular division
or instant sex
And snake-like out of this bubbling soup
they slowly slither
onto the floor—
soft wet tickling tentacles
touch the corpses
and they start to
twitch.
And the noodles begin
to cobra dance—
weaving, winding, coiling, intertwining.
And the corpses stiffly rise
onto their feet—
The noodles now lifting, swimming
through the jungley air
in wet waves
and spastic infinity signs
And now the whole place is really
coming alive!
Even
the corpses
have started to dance
first alone
and then
together.
They have buzzing
blacklight smiles
that wordlessly seem to say,
"Don't
tread on me,
motherfucker."
And then they dive,
and then they dive,
and then they dive,
in a vat
of noodles
to make hot
love, etc.
all night long, etc.
To make hot,
simmering, sizzling, boiling, burning
love
all night long.
THE WORDS TRILOGY
I. BEFORE WORDS
(a short time after the Big Bang)
In the beginning
there wasn't
a word
There was an ocean of sound
its white noise roar only
v e r y
s l o w l y
b e c o m i n g
becoming a rhythm
a rhythm of waves
over eons
the sound
differentiating
and growing bodies
and becoming
breath and cries and yelps and howls and growls and screams and calls
and over the millennia
the cellular division of sound
mutating faster and faster
becoming words
and languages and prayers and chants and songs and tirades and conversations and spells and curses and blessings and rants and poems and lullabies and speeches and letters and sentences and paragraphs and tablets and pamphlets and books and records and cassettes and CDs
II. WORDS
Words are static on the universal radio
Words are a river linking us
Words are a storehouse of feelings and knowledge
Words get in the way of real thought
Words are animal growl, howls, and calls
Words are noise
Words are thought control
Words are spirit
Words are walls around your thoughts
Words liberate ideas
Words are the pattern of meaning
Words are drugs
Words are demons left behind by disgruntled gods to give us psychological problems
Words define
Words are vague
Words are what we think
Words are not what we think
Words are the past holding us back
Words are our roots in history
Words are pictures
Words are worth more than many pictures
Words are a description of reality
Words are reality
Words are tools
Words are toys
Words are words, words are music
Words are words, words are music
Words are
III. AFTER WORDS
After words
the laughter
after words
the scream
after words
between the lines
after words
the air keeps ringing
after words
focus shifts
after words
dancing thoughts
after words
a dance without thought
like a moth around flame
After words
eye to eye
after words
skin to skin
after words
pleasure plays
after words
kisses linger
after words
wet erect
after words
tongue in groove
after words
we are a love fire
made of body and soul
After words
the body sings
after words
we meditate
after words
head filled with space
after words
everything speaking
after words
rhythm rules
after words
silence hums
after words
desire moves toward something that
it can't name
after words after words
Beyond Our Senses
There are many waves of light
that for humans are unseen
And there are germs that stay behind
when our eyes think it's clean
And we have learned that there are things
that even live inside us
Some we'll never notice
and others that can kill us
Just because it's something
we can not see or feel
Doesn't mean that something
is any less than real
Ultraviolet, gravity, x-ray vision
Infrared, dog whistle, atomic dance
With imagination
there are more ways to feel
Like we have another organ
with which to sense the real
Ultraviolet, gravity, x-ray vision
Infrared, dog whistle, atomic dance
There are notes that are so high
and ones that are so low
To which these or any speakers
are never going to go
And there may be kinds of music
that we can not hear
And though we don't perceive them
they still might be quite near
Just because it's something
we can not see or feel
Doesn't mean that something
is any less than real
Ultraviolet, gravity, x-ray vision
Infrared, dog whistle, atomic dance
With imagination
there are more ways to feel
Like we have another organ
with which to sense the real
Ultraviolet, gravity, x-ray vision
Infrared, dog whistle, atomic dance
Ultraviolet, gravity, x-ray vision
Infrared, dog whistle, atomic dance
Maybe there is more we don't
than what there is we sense
Maybe someday we'll reach a
knowing more immense
a knowing more intense
a knowing more immense
a knowing more intense
Visual Pollution
All around they taunt me with sexuality
Like it had somethin' to do with product quality
They want me to think it'll feel like sex
To buy me more cars, clothes, and cigarettes
Advertising in my face it tries to shape my dreams
Bombarding my brain with their marketing schemes
They buy imaginations, they want inside my pants
'Cause that's the place where my wallet's at
There's lots of writin' on the wall
Some of it big, some of it small
Some costs a lot of money, some was done for free
Some is advertising, some's graffiti
What's the solution
To visual pollution
It's a thing of great complexity
That won't be cleared up by making us less free
What we need is more community
What we need is more community
When people talk about it they put graffiti down
Like it was the nastiest thing in this town
Though the tags of idiots are what we mostly get
Sometimes there's art and the words of new prophets
Graffiti at best a kind of free speech
At worst it's a mess we don't need on our streets
But if ya wanta stop graffiti and ya want my support
First your gonna have to stop those damn billboards
There's lots of writin' on the wall
Some of it big, some of it small
Some costs a lot of money, some was done for free
Some is advertising, some's graffiti
What's the solution
To visual pollution
It's a thing of great complexity
That won't be cleared up by making us less free
What we need is more community
What we need is more community
The Lakes of Band-I-Amir
[When I visited both of the places in the this poem, Band-I-Amir and Bamiyan in Afganistan, they both seemed to be deeply peaceful places. And they have had long periods of peace, but their human history is also one of many violent invasions.
The statues of the Buddha at Bamiyan were the tallest in the world with one at 175 feet and another standing 120 feet tall. Though Bamiyan now seems quite isolated, when the statues were created between 200 & 400 A.D., they were part of a center of culture and art on the ancient Silk Road that connected China to the Middle East and Europe.
In 1973, just a couple of years after I visited there in 1971, Band-I-Amir was declared Afghanistan’s first National Park. But, that had never become a functional reality before the Russians invaded in 1979.]
I.
a. The sky blue lakes
of Band-I-Amir—
are a bracelet
of lapis lazuli
flung
in the canyon dust
by a joyous goddess
in her dervish dance—
now a gift
for all that pass
through the arid
Afgan
highland.
b. Just down the valley
(in a later age
long after the lakes had formed)
monks carved
huge statues
of the Buddha
in the living rock,
honeycombed the cliffs
with cells
and sanctuaries,
that reverberated
with their chants
and the emptiness
of their
meditations.
II.
a. Now the peace of this place
is shattered again—
Where the violence
of the White Huns
brought them to rule,
Where Genghis Khan
came slaughtering,
Where conquering emperor,
Aurangzeb,
first smashed
the statues’ faces,
Where the British waged
the Anglo-Afghan Wars,
Where Russian imperialists
were a plague,
Where the Taliban
did ethnic cleansing
and destroyed
the world’s tallest statues
of the Buddha
and helped
destroy
the world’s tallest temple
for the modern god
of the global
economy,
Where more recently
U.S. bombs
smashed rubble
and people
into even
smaller
pieces.
And the local villagers
(Moslems, in this era)
tough, poor, and proud
must fear
landmines,
warlords,
and yet another
invader,
this time
from the other
side
of the world.
And the monk’s caves
are empty
or hiding places
for the guilty
and the innocent,
and the in between.
II.
b. Here,
in the nation of my birth
people are
frightened,
angry,
pained,
and confused
by the molten hatred
of those
that would gladly die
to kill us
or kill what
we seem
to stand for.
III.
At the end
of a dusty burning road
Band-I-Amir
where my feelings dove
from the distant peaks
of the Hindu Kush
into wild blue beauty—
liquid lapis,
glistening
Tahoe jewels
set
in the desert—
sky fused to earth—
calm, cool, clear,
and dark
except
for a few
flashes
of golden
light
on bright
scales
of fishes
swimming up
from undercurrents
of memory,
toward
amphibian
future
a mammal
future,
a human
future
we keep
forgetting
to remember
to evolve.
In The Dark
In the dark oh I can't see
any walls between you and me
In the dark we're all the same
we don't need any clothes or names
In the dark there beats our hearts
In the dark where everything starts
In the dark feeling is your guide
In the dark we're all on the same side
In darkness I come back to myself
Realize I'm like everyone else
I have desires, I have needs
I got a whole being with hungers to feed
In the dark on life's other side
is a place where no one needs to hide
In the dark we touch the mystery
a beauty we don't need to see
In the dark we plant the seed
In the dark we touch our need
In the dark imaginations wild
In the dark we start the child
It's true I drag myself through each day
What I do is just for the pay
I got to a job in a costume
For the real me there just isn't room
In the dark after days of pain
comes a night of cooling rain
In the dark we feel our way
and you say, "Ah, come what may"
In the dark we meet desire
In the dark shadows on fire
In the dark you get the urge
In the dark our bodies merge
In darkness I come back to myself
realize I'm like everyone else
We all have desires, we all have needs
we got whole beings with hungers to feed
In the dark where love's complete
anyone can become sweet
In the dark I can believe
that someone really could love me
In the dark we touch our dreams
In the dark it all comes clean
In the dark where everything flows
In the dark where everything goes
Information
We work, we work, we work, we work
To build a processed world
But never touch the heart of earth
Around which life is curled
Around which life is curled
Those that we call primitive
have long known to protect
What we with modern wisdom so
often do neglect
They know that we should honor
the pattern that connects
the pattern that connects
[Deforestation is a loss of information]
Life is the shape of energy
Life is information
Life is information
[Species extinction is a loss of information]
Bits and bytes and bleeding hunks
Bleeding hunks of information
We work, we work, we work, we work
To build a processed world
And never touch the heart of love
Around which life is curled
Around which life is curled
Energy of the sun
glows in every being
“All are part of the watershed”
my river-veins are singing
And we are all linked together in
one big living thing
one big living thing
[Wetlands destruction is a loss of information]
Life is the shape of energy
Life is information
Life is information
[River damnation is a loss of information]
Bits and bytes and bleeding hunks
Bleeding hunks of information
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