centred on silence counting on nothing i saw you standing on the sea and everything was dark except for sparks the wind struck from your hair sparks that turned to wings around you angel voices mixed with seabird cries fields of motion surging outward questions that contain their own replies... you were dancing i saw you dancing throwing your arms toward the sky fingers opening like flares stars were shooting everywhere lines of power bursting outward along the channels of your song mercury waves flashed under your feet shots of silver in the shell-pink dawn... (Ottawa 20/12/78)
underneath the mask of the sulphur sky
a bunch of us were busy waiting,
watching the people looking ill-at-ease,
watching the fraying rope get closer to breaking.
Women and men moved back and forth
in between effect and cause
and just beyond the range of normal sight
this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws
Let me be a little of your breath
moving over the face of the deep --
i want to be a particle of your light
flowing over the hills of morning.
The only sign you gave of who you were
when you first came walking down the road,
was the way the dust motes danced around
your feet in a cloud of gold.
But everything you see's not the way it seems --
tears can sing and joy shed tears.
You can take the wisdom of this world
and give it to the ones who think it all ends here!
Let me be a little of your breath
moving over the face of the deep --
i want to be a particle of your light
flowing over the hills of morning.
mon corps se pence,
ma main s'entends,
prends du gravier
un morcean blanc de coquille.
pour un instant
un mugissement;
l'antique mer
rempli cet espace qui a ete le mien.
lozanges mobiles,
des herbes flottantes;
un cri soudain
d'oiseau flamboie au firmament!
* * *
une troupe d'antilopes
traverse l'horizon,
sabots scintillants comme du verre
un rire sonne comme le cristal
dans le ciel vide --
quelqu'un danse comme une flamme!
(Ottawa -- Paques 79)
TRANSLATION: "Badlands Flashback"
the body stoops,
the hand goes out,
picks up from the gravel
a fragment of white seashell
for a moment
a roaring;
the ancient sea
fills the space that just now was mine
moving diamond-shapes,
grasses flowing;
the sudden cry of a bird
blazes all along the sky!
* * *
a herd of antelope
crosses the horizon
hooves scintillating like glass.
a laugh rings like crystal
in the empty sky --
someone is dancing like a flame!
(Ottawa -- Easter 79)
Sunday night and it's half past nine (3x)
I'm leaving one more town behind.
Mirrors are showing the day's last glow (3x)
as we're spit out into the jigsaw flow.
Ahead where there should be the thickness of night
star are pinned on a shimmering curtain of light.
Sky full of rippling cliffs and chasms
that shine like signs on the road to heaven...
* * *
I've been cut by the beauty of jagged mountains
and cut by the love that flows like a fountain from God.
So i carry these scars, precious and rare,
and tonight i feel like i'm made of air...
(Calgary-Medicine Hat 27/8/78)
After rain in the streets light flows like blood --
I can just taste salt on the humid wind.
Here comes that gasoline
spreading hungry rainbow over shiny black tar.
I'm blown like smoke and blind as wind
except for when your love breaks in.
Maybe to those who love is given sight
to pierce the wall of seeming night
and know it pure beyond all imagining.
Engine throb street cruise light bullet car flash
hollow beauty night gleam oily river tension glass...
Ultraflame! glittering dust falling in slow
motion -- clouds tumbling one over another into apparent emptiness.
It's like a big fist breaking down my door --
I never felt such a love before!
Maybe to those who love it's given to hear
music too high for the human ear
and clear as hydrogen to go singing.
(Toronto -- 13/6/79)
Sun's up, uuh huh, looks okay the world survives into another day and i'm thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me. I had another dream about lions at the door they weren't half as frightening as they were before but i'm thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me. Walls windows trees, waves coming through you be in me and i'll be in you together in eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me Up among the firs where it smells so sweet or down in the valley where the river used to be i got my mind on eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake, thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take, pointing a finger at eternity i'm sitting in the middle of this ecstasy Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun, polished as precise like the brain behind the gun (should be!) they got me thinking about eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay One of these days we're going to sail away, going to sail into eternity some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me and i'm wondering where the lions are... i'm wondering where the lions are... (Ottawa -- 12/1/79)
I sneaked across the border -- it was threatening rain --
so i could stand in this tunnel, waiting for the roaring train
and watch those black kids working out Kung fu moves.
If you don't want to be the horses' hoofprints you got to be the hooves.
Hear that lonesome violin play.
See the notes float up into the overcast
and change to white birds as they sail on through
and soar away free into incandescent blue.
People getting ready behind all those rectangles of light
"Put on your grin mask, babe, you know we're steppin out tonight"
You hear that sound, like hammers only small?
It's what the people's heads say when they beat them against the wall.
Hear that lonesome violin play.
See the notes float up into the overcast
and change to white birds as they sail on through
and soar away free into incandescent blue.
Concrete vortex sucks down the wind;
It's howling like a blinded violin.
Oh -- Tongues of Fire, come and kiss my brow
if i ever needed you, well i need you now!
Hear that lonesome violin play.
See the notes float up into the overcast
and change to white birds as they sail on through
and soar away free into incandescent blue.
(New York --)
mist hangs above hills
above mist hangs stone face of mountain
above mountain face hangs a net of sky --
crack! there are wings and they rip the net!
and the Dance flows on
everything flows toward the rim of that
shining Cup
crossed sticks lie on earth
between crossed sticks -- pile of ash
something rises on the wisp of smoke
dog's feet move by fast
and the Dance flows on
everything flows toward the rim of that
shining Cup
through these channels/words
i want to touch you
touch you deep down
where you live
not for power but
because i love you
so
love the Lord
and in Him love me too
and in Him go your way
and i'll be right there with you
leaving
no footprints when we go
no footprints when we go
only where we've been, a faint and fading glow...
(mainly Banff 19/7/78)