Cosmology of Beat                

 

In the cosmology of beat

There are cars and roads

And curling smoke

Rising from black and grey,

Like Still-shots!

Still Shots of a village messiah,

Standing slouched,

Spouting slowly

On Wooster and Bleecher,

Mumbling!

Mumbling Sanskrit slokas,

Like Leroi Amiri Baraka,

 A Lone gunfighter,

Pensive, in a loft up there,

Leans against a piano

That weeps and faints,

That weeps and faints

As he begins to recite,

The tale of his baptism by bop,

 in a blackandwhite space.

 

In the cosmology of beat,

There are black steel stairs below

And there is the twist,

At the end of the martini,

Which sulks,

At the bottom

Of the glassy pit, empty.

 

In the Cosmology of Beat

The  mind sits

Armed only

With a swizzle stick

Swirling the dust

From  the Buddhist tantra

That make the cosmos

Sound like physics

 gone to shit.

In the cosmology of beat

There is hope,

That the hum and the swirl,

And the chance that

A sound will emerge

and bulbs will sway

And faces will turn,

In corridors

Where whispers and chants

Once did reverberate.

 

In the cosmology of beat,

It is said that

Beats will come

In technicolour,

in ekta fuckachrome

beats from a bongo, a harp

a piano

and bo-beep

from a sax on the edge of the metro

that will tunnel down

and take you away

in a whoosh, instead of an Om!