At this Stage (and a collaboration with Amy Trussell) by Andy di Michele
Andy di Michele is the author of several experimental works, some of which were published (and/or performed) in New Orleans: Nay-Pau-Loron (Fell Swoop Editions), Black Market Pneuma (Lavender Ink), The Minarets of Alabama (Trembling Pillow) and Hoof Swarms Among Bridhe Glyphs (Surregional Press, w/ Amy Trussel). He taught at Tulane University and the New Orleans School for the Imagination before escaping Katrina's wrath. He is now living in Media, PA casting snow spells.
Amy Trussell (Santa Rosa, CA) has been collaborating with Andy di Michele on a decade-long, experimental, mythotextual-laboratory of incantations and sacred gossip titled Ungulations.
at this stage
i am the alembic
i am the spectrum of
all moralities,
tendencies
i am future imperfect
i am the gaze meeting the
aroma
the rose on the (pistis)
tastebuds'the body is the lab '
is the stone to be seen?
Is the stone to be heard?
Is the stone to be
tongued
inhaledpenetrated? is this
transference, the tribe becoming
the anthropologist, the anthropologist
becoming shaman, shaman becoming
uterine delight, that delight
transforming terror into
something no longer able
to change?' the heart is the lapis'
the yellow empress
no longer able to hold the
heaving façade of her long
expired emperor front?twin-headed indecision
oracular figurehead---- this that thus, such ----
i am the other
i am not myself*
imam stole. give back the
m. you are ima. you are
no he. reinstate your s.
she. your s. your sex. your
serpent. say it: hail mother
al-lat. scream it. sister self.
i am coming. home. hel
sin(ai)
(dawn hexagons winking
into yawning octagons of dusk)
IOA
(multiple in a riddle of Unity)
'i am the caliphate of my cell salts'her hear see
she say heaee
hease arsee
devil lee's beltane honey-skull jicara
with Amy Trussell
two times daily, the river runs backwards.
+ + + + + + + + +
devil lee strides
back in
wearing a FU bat
charm around his
sweaty neck
not seen | not hidden
part green / part forbidden
who can argue with the sensuality and design of the form
and the method through which the heart corridor is constructed?
dynamiting into the side of the breasted mountains below kailash
the yantra miners stumble in
with their tender foreheads lighting the rubble.
no wonder oshun
was the first to emerge(sliding up from her mid-day slumber)
annointing herself with glitter cream and cloven oranges
slipping on a vanilla-blood gown over snakeskin boots.
to entice his lightning gaze (that tower-lounge swaying in his left eye)
they look for a place to get warm, but not burnedand drop frangi-pangi oil in a slopbucket of alpine-kiwi water
stolen from the firehouse barbeque
+ + + + + + + + +
drinking acacia tea with her sisters
she got up, kissed
the peacock, polished the mirror,
(not interpreting, just wearing the clothes of interpretation)
drizzled the honey out of a hive fashioned of shredded money,
licked
her lips 5x... and plugged in a neon cowrie belt.
strange objects appeared, like a fold-out bed
where a groaning table of elements used to be.
the blind songwriter fanned the flames between the two
with his balcony shirt
...devil lee
was in his canyon, strumming his box, dreaming
rainbow blues songs about the ocean...
crowing to the sky thunderers
she was placing a cornhusk doll on the lo-boy
performing surgery with an ordinary household broom
spangled in drops of florida water & get-thee-hence oil
orienting herself to occurrences of the gatekeeper turning up
in strange places, like that rock pile
and a juke joint known as "the alligator's lair"+ + + + + + + + +
mounting the dodecahedron mare-head
he rides...
presiding over the lighting rod
and the stamen
gathering and dispersing molecular
grain all at once
hearing the number seventeen in the gallop
he lasso'd the mid-spring dawn sun for her
dripping copper into her siesta flashbacks
they always meet between 4 and 6,
twice...
smeared in paint like impressionists taking a
year long lunch break
eating grasshopper spearmint pie without proper implements and
dancing in an adobe warehouse, dropping incriminating details off the earth face
with juggler's balls full of food coloring
falling down an abandoned shaft onto
a mat of red chicken feathers, scotch
broom & king biscuit flour sacks
(hence, a future yellow-red blur...)
a pentagrammatic steel-cut snapshot
spelled out by an antlered
homunculus of oat bran and marine know-how
(four petrified pomegranates and a basket in a delphic crevice)
scrying grilled scotch-bonnets in a green pumpkin shell
("de way de seeds lay..."):
:firebranding the patakis, lee laughs up
a north sea storm...
under this new moon: runnuculus bloom early in
semi-univuncular societies,
a cigar is lit (the first thing the querant smelled after his coma)
heart(h) and surf mingle in a phosphorous carnival,
the glowing bones
showing through jaundiced clown flesh
ganesh and exu tumble on fronds and lick chiron's frogs by the
high altitude neon catfish pond
(here, flicker 151 beeswax candles lit by a jockey with
a tungsten scimitar)
plantains flip from
swordfishermen palms the almanacks are
revised gourds are split
( down the left hemisphere of the brain it rains upwards )
they open a door in the pharmacy wall of sound and step in.
or is it out?
rum is spilled. the titanium farm drum is irrigated with smoke. enter
only with a shibboleth tongue tattoo'd with the lucky pony
diagram
+ + + + + + + + +
this is the nor'easter that begins the celebration
of the final fall of rome & cuba...(o return, ma'at-ba'al)
hail vesta! fix me a homecoming molotov with wild lemon essence.
and olives. smudge the sewer head of constantine!
devil lee slips on a banana peel to distract ms. caridad y toros
from the snake pit who laughs and it
rains lynxes and jackals and hanuman devotees...
she scrubs them off her steps with van-van oil and a garden snake hose.
there's the mirror she holds and converses with...
"hail oshun" the light refracts, shines down on the
seamstress of the bay
as she finishes up the midline of the chest
in pollinated sequins and a marinated
spider rhinestone hat pin
hail the hurricane network of angel
dynamos buoying the blue
bottle thrown by devil lee
in the undiscovered kelp forest, the people gather
beneath the hunan-jacoranda tree
and swing their caribbean jerk chants
out towards the 7 seas of ma yemaya-ji
(she waits patiently, knitting compassion force-fields with
seaweed and wave-crest exactitude).
o millennia of
mevlevi flames,
lao floods!
(lee) he's still thirsty, throat painted christmas red as always...
but there's a fire in the stablesembodied in a salt-cellar horse lagoon.
the whistling sower loops around the
berks county corn queen again
to the sound of an atharvan cowbell striking golden membranes
a new vein has formed and the lunar miner
holds up a lantern