The Tenth Dance of Christmas: Abstract Expressionist Incarnation Experiment

The Tenth Dance of Christmas: Abstract Expressionist Incarnation Experiment

I count ten figures,
human-like forms
(this paint too thick for angels),
white and black bodies dancing daring arabesques
in Pollock's Greyed Rainbow.

The Divine art, too,
performed itself in violent human action,
taking on our skin, not as shell,
no safe outer layer,
not encrusted,
but risking the very vertigo
of presence,
transcending immanence the only way worth falling,
by entering in, l'amour par terre.

I say Pollock saw the truth.
Friend says he drank too much, smoked too much, lost all control,
and had that thing for women 
other than his wife.
Yes he did. But when I say Pollock,
I mean oil, and light, and canvas,
and finding what you know just as
you spill it and learn to see it.

Within (not above or beyond or beneath) this
leaping interlace of black and white pulsation,
find all the colors of the world,
all joy and pain of every necessary blessed drip and drop of human love.
The action of one heart, one mind, one brush, one mad insomniac need,
poured out on one stretched taut once pure linen world,
one tense, nicotine-stained, lost and lovely world.

Behold the truth, the cost of freedom,
a new Galileo, claiming,
proclaiming,
that nothing goes around anything any more. 
Wherever you find yourself is where you will be found.
You fall, you leap, you dance, you turn, return,
to where the deep down colors never finally fade
in one bleak and brilliant swirling life.

Jesus at the Wedding of Cana, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen (c. 1530)

The Ninth Dance of Christmas: A Benediction, Forbidding Allegory

[Print of "Ladies Dancing,"  by Delilah, 2009,
available at http://www.imagekind.com/art/stunning/dancing-ladies/artwork-on/fine-art-prints]

The Ninth Dance of Christmas: 

A Benediction, Forbidding Allegory

 
Under the order of creation,
and in honor of the holy incarnation,
and by the power vested in pilgrim poets,
I hereby forbid all allegorizing of the ninth day of Christmas
and the lovely ladies dancing their triple-time bourrée.

Leave all twelve days alone, for that matter,
for the sweet God's sake,
who shunned not skin, they say, for ours. 

For skin's sake, now forever sanctified,
let the mother's breasts be beautiful with milk,
let the baby boy's penis be unswaddled,
let the sheep shit,
and let the angels envy the whole blessed material mess. 

as they must if the Father said good

and the Son yes. 

No, these nine ladies are hair and blood and bone not spirit,
despite their sprightly dance.
Their dance means dancing, their sweat means sweat, 

As Christmas means Christ, and the feast food. 

And so my ladies--including you, Theresa, 
my unforgettable partner from the sixth-grade dance class, 
our parents trying to make sure we'd grow in grace -- 
break those terrible chains of symbol,
let your legs be light and lovely
like your sister the doe,
let your straining haunches reflect the glory
of your mother the mare

and of He who made.

If solitude is one, and dancing is not, 

then forget your disciplines and perhaps your directors

my spiritual friends,

spend some time in the psalter instead,

and practice your Ignatian meditation on Christ dancing at Cana

at the wedding feast. 

One night, one hot liminal night in July in Leeds, 

Astrid and I must have lost ten pounds between us.
We shone and glistened and moved like . . . no, not angels,
like lovely beasts made of dust and bone and mystery's warmest breath.
It meant something holy, yes, 
precisely this--
Skin and motion and sound and glorious musculature and the 
mysterious suitability of human feet for such a balance
of abandon and pattern and joy. 

 

The First (swing) Dance of Christmas: Blue Night in Bethlehem

The First (swing) Dance of Christmas: 

Blue Night in Bethlehem

 

It was a blue, blue night in Bethlehem,

when sweet mother Mary and good old Joe 

(and  baby JC in and ex utero)

came blowing into town, 

made the scene

danced the crazy dream, 

lit a big Guadalupe candle to crack

the too long too damn dark. 

 

So I sing the big mystery in our animal skin,

finally coming in to dig and deal with us. 

Donkey braying heigh-ho,

Angels singing daaayyy-ooooo

Gracias. 

Si Señor. Muchas muchas gracias para Navidad de Nuestro Señor Jesucristo.

Si Señor. Gracias a Dios.

 

This night, this night, 

we're gonna' get it right, 

we're gonna' make it ring, 

we're gonna' bring our sheep, 

we're gonna' bring our feet, 

we're gonna' take the leap

and do the one thing we've 

waited for all our lives. 

Damn those Romans, 

tonight we're gonna' make it 

superswing. 

No more silence. No more solitude. 

Tonight, the presence is the present. 

For once and maybe for only,

love is not a longing. 

No, no, 

love right now is this sweet sweet finding, 

right now it's this wild dance, 

this laughter, 

this swirling vertiginous motion

making shepherds angels, 

maids mothers, 

kings beggars,

and god man.  

 

The Second Dance of Christmas: Boxing Day Boogie

The Second Dance of Christmas: Boxing Day* Boogie
(Sung to the tune of the World Socialist Hymn**)

On Boxing Day, we fill each box
with treats, toys, and certificates
for the humble poor, the child of need,
and various holy indigents 

(yes, various holy indigents). 

No Ebeneezer's need apply
for Saint Stephen's chorus line.
This dance is sweet but dangerous,
so masters, spill the wine 

(now masters spill the wine). 

Now a toast for all poor 'prentices,
though I'm not sure what I mean.
Enough to know that in old "Merry Old"
they all looked rather lean 

(yes, they all looked rather lean). 

So, let them that has now give it up,
let them who needs receive,
but don't re-gift the socks and ties,
and those horrible balls of cheese 

(those horrible balls of cheese). 

Now them with legs should up and jump,
and those with wings should fly,
and Gabriel, if you're still around 
blow some changes from the sky 

(some changes from the sky).  

For if God, in fact, took on our skin,
it means . . . well, let's just say,
that sharing food and warmth and coin
are the order of the day 

(the order of the day). 

So gather near the manger my dears,
and circle hands in hands,
a child shall lead us--left, right, left,
in the radical Christmas dance 

(the radical Christmas dance). 

Yes gather at the manger dears, 

and circle hands in hands, 

THE CHILD SHALL LEAD US -- 

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, 

IN THE RADICAL CHRISTMAS DANCE! 

* If you don't know what Boxing Day is or its relationship to apprentices and charity and Saint Stephen, please don't expect a clear explanation of it here. I am not, nor never have been, a journalist. I am a mythographer. 

**I just made that up but I assume there is one. If there isn't such a thing, the tune of Gilligan's Island or Amazing Grace will work as well.  

The Fourth Dance of Christmas: Holy Innocents (December 28)

The Fourth Dance of Christmas: 

The Massacre of the Holy Innocents (December 28)

Reading, Meditation, and Collect

Gospel Reading for the Feast of Holy Innocents: 
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

Meditation:

This is a dance without words,
Or rather,
the words lead either nowhere or everywhere,
which may or may not even be in the same universe.

There is music though, 
one string wailing, and out of tune,
a kind of hopeless, horrible, riff on real gut strings,
which, it turns out, really aren't from cats,
like the ones Bach would need for his requiem viola
or for those harps they played 
by the rivers of Babylon.

The dancers move like she-golems,
naked, full-breasted, ridiculously weighted to the world,
dumbly grieving a loss beyond all calculation,
beyond knowing, speaking, re-phrasing,
figuring, explaining, shaping.
This danse basse is what chaos looks like.
And it may be all there is.

Perhaps one day--a circle of erect and noble forms,
a hymn which modulates this torture to 
something more like mere heartbreak,
an instrument discovered to play their desolation true.
Perhaps, I said.
Till then, no.
Quit bellowing how best to grieve.
Restrain your impotent gestures.
They refuse your monstrous consolations.



Collect for the Feast of Holy Innocents: 
We remember this day, O God, the slaughter of the holy innocents of Bethlehem by the order of King Herod. Receive, we beseech thee, into the arms of thy mercy all innocent victims; and by thy great might frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish thy rule of justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Eighth Dance of Christmas: Irreverent Solemnity of the Holy Mother of God

The Eighth Dance of Christmas: Irreverent Solemnity of the Holy Mother of God

It feels like New Year's Day to me,
but the church tells me it's something more (or less)
than football, hangovers, and black-eyed peas (a southern thang ya'll).

Jenny, my youngest, tells me that she needs a car
because she'll only be schooling half a day next term
and working the other half. 

"Holy Mother of God!!!" I exclaim, with some sauce (and extra points).
She doesn't get the irony.
I'm off to a good start on this first day of all the rest. 

"How do you think you'll pay for this?!" I start the guilting,
forgetting all my vows and prayers 
and the sweeter thoughts of midnight past. 

"I've saved up $2,000 from my job"
Damn. Really?
I don't deserve a kid like this. Or much of anything I else I have.

I don't deserve a second chance, more like the twentieth by now.
I don't deserve these eyes, this voice, this hunger,
or the vintage Doc Martens from the charity shop on Bayswater.

I don't deserve to have read Dante, or Chaucer,
Or Cervantes or the scroll version of On the Road.
Or to have sat on a bench in Pamplona and felt loved,
or something like.

I don't deserve this new day, this breathe,this song, this dance,
this bread offered again today,
after months and months of angers and unforgivingness.

Comes the words of grace from an angel.
Followed by the other from the old man--
a sword shall pierce your own heart also, just in case you were thinking

that being the mother of God or the follower of the rabbi
meant escape from anything. It doesn't.
No one ever escapes anything ultimately.

Hot coals, labor pains, the one you love turned cold,
rejection, regret, being a pain in the butt to the protestants,
even the sweetest kids finally rip or are ripped away.

Holy Mother of God. To thee do we cry.
With thee do we dance.
Now and at the hour of our death. 

We eat at House of Hunan New Year's Day,
Desperate for a fortune that will fit.
My cookies tell me nothing but "You appreciate art and music."

The waitress comes with the bill and finds me downhearted.
She smiles and says, "buy a car for your daughter, and say thank you 
to 365 people for being gifts you can never deserve. More water?"
Holy Mother of God.


 


 

The Seventh Dance of Christmas: Swan Song (and dance) for a year that will never come again.

The Seventh Dance of Christmas:  
Swan Song (and dance) for a year that will never come again.

This is the end. My only friend.
Jim Morrison (The Doors) wrote that,
without asking my advice about its spiritual or psychological significance.

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me seven swans a swimming.
She didn't ask my advice either.
"She" is a construct for the purposes of this dance.

Yet, in truth, she is as real as the pain in my arm,
the break in my heart,
the aching regret for every crazy stupid or downright vicious thing I've done
this Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twelve. 
And the long sinful stream before.

She is a swan, a beautiful miracle bird,
ugly only in her own false estimation,
swimming against the tide of the sad meaning of everything artificial,
dancing somewhat desperately at the dying of the light,
the end of the day, the close of the year,
her fine down far far down
stream this final night of December.
This twilight kingdom of those being perfected
through suffering and such. 

This is the end. But damned if it's conclusion.
In this flowing fluid dancing, ending means beginning,
what matters is whether badly or well 
(and that's the well my dears that needs sounding).
 
This swan song, dance, swim, gesture, sculpture, scripture,
is giver, gift, lover, killer, mother, enemy, friend.
The end of (a) time, the thousand regrets, still more beautiful messes,
a gathering gloom, every lost love (animal, human, divine)--

yet a line, a break, a cut-off point, a gracious pause from sin and grief 
and failure.

A fresh breath. 
An egg. 
All these lovely mortal feathers 
ruffled again for yet another
absurd plunge 
into the stream of time.
 
And, after all, it's the eve of the Feast of 
the Holy Mother of God.
So you drive through the rain and fog to reach the zero time 
just in time.
To share the muddy midnight with your rotting writer friend
(the mystic monk who taught you how to 
turn a phrase)
with a bottle of Shiner 
and a prayer to Whomever hears.
 
Later (earlier?), the chapel is open, so you sit in the darkness,
one light only shining towards the far end 
of the sanctuary.
It's warm right here 
and it's very very cold out there.
 
You pray by name for a hundred or so of your closest,
wishing you could snuggle with a twenty or thirty of them tonight,
you mumble Our Fathers and Aves and Salves till you doze off into peace.
Not worrying, for the second, about who and why and how . . . .
 
You are a swimming in or rather floating down a stream,
a gift from your true love,
you too are a swan, the gift and the gifted,
the ugly past forgotten, 
or something like forgotten.

The noise returns you to the world of 
neck pain and loneliness.
The monks are coming into chapel 
to chant the early vigil.
Your watch says 3 A.M. 
Your brain asks, where will I sleep tonight?
Your heart says, this is the future; 
maybe now my breathing will be holy.

It is cold. And dark. And the complex kingdom is a beast unconquered. 

And yet. And yet. 

Things can be different than they seem.
Swans are birds that swim.
This maid has milk in her breasts,
for the lord who leapt in her belly.
A monk is like a lady dancing gaily.

That old stooped one with the beard 
who is not joining in the singing of Psalm 76,
is almost certainly J. D. Salinger (despite the false stories of his life and death elsewhere).

Amen. And Amen. 

Regrets, sadness, loves, 
fierce and desperate thanksgivings and curses--
tonight all things are Omega.

In Santiago, at the end of the pilgrimage, 
you come through a doorway
on which the chrismon symbols are reversed -- Omega and Alpha.
As if to say,
This is the end. So get started.

The swan song (and dance) is paradox, only always performed in the flow. 
Now, good morrow to our waking souls (Donne).

All things are new.
So you can go now into Louisville,
drive past Fourth and Walnut but don't stop just keep swimming. 

Merton stood there once and felt a love that almost killed him.
"There is no way of telling all these people that they are walking around shining like the sun," he said.

Maybe he couldn't then, 
but at 5.20 A.M. on New Year's Day,
it's really not that hard.
You roll down your window, unzip your heart, and say 
"You."