CANTO 48
My printer's devils are in html hell "The sun shines for you, he said," sd Molly Bloom, "How he kissed me under the Moorish wall." Citralis- "When the moment is ripe, my man is ready." Anyway you add it, it's a rug in a jug, it's a Dzog Chen garage sale Stretchings & prayers "Chain them to their looms! I hear that across the ages." The tree of life in the nook, "a stack" of the levels if the tree of life is looked at from the top the light changes, and I SEE the myth as I have the faculty goes beyond my capacity humbling, blessed, an artist is not responsible for every element in the art no wrong notes unless they're in the wrong place this note exists on your block as a representative of around the corner a dented skepticism is better than a staid skepticism human condition rivaling stars have developed my capacities into a poem w/ a pattern spend my time studying a pattern exists in silence out of the middle of nowhere we come into this house of many rooms "Do you want a light on?" Mozart messes w/ my heartstrings, raises his baton and conducts an
orchestra of Dakinis in Fuga allegro moderato e maestoso a tre soggetti
ed a 4 voci. "My heart is a pin ball machine." And what happened next was to defy anything I had ever expected, and as usual, I was
completely unprepared. Fat chance I was going to spend the evening cuddling with Laura and
watching Kill Bill Vol. 2. The kitchen was buzzing with flies, and there was a stench. A touch of awareness kicked in as I entered the room. This was not the kitchen as I
remembered it. What are these flies doing here? How did they get in? The door to the back
porch was open, and it was dark there. Louder fly noise from that direction. I walked over and flipped on the light. Nada. Flies. Lots of them, coming through a tear in the
screen door. Maybe something dead under the porch. Flashlight. One in the car. Better get that before I go any further. Laura called from the front
room, "Francesco, what are you doing?" "I going out to the garage." "Bring in a bottle of wine, if you're going out there," she said. "Right-O," I signaled back, but the wine would have to wait. My curiosity was working overtime. Even my tabby's curiosity had peaked. He rubbed his body
against my leg, my trusty sidekick. I got my torch, and we followed our noses and the buzzing.
It's a big house, built over a hundred years ago, built of brick. Most of the houses in this town
are built of brick, the clay mined from the quarry where the rodeo & fairgrounds now sit,
fairground built to celebrate the resurrection of the town after the 1896 fire. The town grew
out of its ashes like a Phoenix. Mythical bird. Didn't expect to find one rotting under my porch. I spoke to the tabby, "Scratch, is that the rotting corpse of a mythical bird or not?" Scratch
looked and sniffed. "It's not a peacock or an ostrich or a dodo-those are real birds, although
the dodo is now extinct-no, this is not a real bird, this is a Phoenix, and a Phoenix is a mythical
bird. A bird of the imagination. A bird of pure qualities. It's a bird that arises once in an eon,
and it's supposed to rise from its own ashes. Only, this bird is rotting." Scratch looked at me and back at the Phoenix, seeming to say, "Tell me about it." I went on. "It's fouling up my house. What goes here?" There was a wooden chair by the step, and I used that to prop open the screen door. Then, I
turned on the ceiling fan in the kitchen and waved my arms at the flies. "Out, out," I said,
excitedly. I had been looking for my fourth mystical beast in the game Five Great Karmas. I had
Laura's Anthill in the garden, and I had a Griffin in the garage. Laura had slain all but my last
Basilisk, the last still her role to realize. And now, a Phoenix! Rare. Not easily encountered.
Harder to contain, but possible-there were ways. High-test asbestos-steel lining a porcelain
sarcophagus. Three months in the making once ordered from McHammermil. I'd always
expected to get a sighting before I would order. This is different. A body in this summer heat
turns to compost fast. So, now what? And how did a Phoenix become mortal? The flies seemed to understand my gesticulations. Only a couple remained, buzzing by the
sink. I was totally buzzed myself, projecting my next move. Thrown off balance. Expecting new
activity ahead. "Francesco," Laura called, "the bottle of wine."