A series of poems by Julie Rogers and David Meltzer
Read by Julie Rogers and Gene Berson

for David, who’s totem was “the mutt”

Who is real, who asked?
Who do you do–
do you do your
self man dog woman
in your arms
who is she? Who’s mystery
curls into your serpent’s mirror,
who is looking back?

Who do you love?
Do you love real 
whatever happens
around the corner?
Do you love the unexpected
jolt of life’s holiest 
moment 
when you 
do not know?

Do you bark at the moon
taking her up 
from your glowing bowl at midnight 
lapping her kiss?

Do you kiss the poem’s
rough push against
your tender spot?

Do you hold
good/bad to your breast
do you feed them?

Do you know
who will never deceive
who will lead you to yourself
and leave you at the bus stop,
who travels in now?

Holy cow the world.
Holy holds its own
holding nothing.
Who am I?
Who are you?


Who’s Holy Too?      for Julie    		

Rolling holy
in oil of auras ablaze
in haze of tears
feeding starving 
African infants

Roiling holy hymns
to hers excluded 
& to deluded ones
multiplying into
two threes
a threshold of clouds
vision barriers
facet of aspect
out to lunch
to launch vampiric delere
in battle of bands
& bonds

Who is holy
that is not holy

How do you or me know?
Is it a look?
An aura, a nimbus
crowning the illumined face?
An emanated energy
to generate ascent?
Astounding utterance?

Who is holy
that is not holy

Is it what's here
hiding out
between the lines?

Is it lovers' sighs
whose breath escapes
into alphabets of
star lights?


Holy Roll      for David        

Holy is
as holy does you.
True? Are you you
or someone else
more pious, practiced,
put together carefully. 
Don’t let the mask slip,
your view is through it.
When it falls the world tips
and you go with it.

Holy where?
Maybe here between
the buildings, nosed along
by rats, a light in the black 
rummage of night, the glint
in mind’s eye, the blink
of each neon dart
to pierce the city sky.
The holy dart.
The cold holy air.

Am holy/am not.
Holy is why I wonder, 
wander through myself
with my hand out,
mouth full of spirits, 
curious words. Do questions
pack the back room of your head?
I string my need to know 
like a row of ducks
in a parable.

Rolling holy mantras,
holy grail, holy grounds,
charnel grounds, ghosts, 
Holy Ghost, mystery 
Hand of The Divine
in magazines, scriptural billboards.
Holy mission on the corner
of salvation, ring the bell, hold 
the half empty cup. 
What’s unholy about it?

Worship of Deity
God/Goddess earth/self
holy steer on Varanasi Street,
kosher hot dog, sacrificial wine
the thin bread that breaks easily.
Holy body/holy union – 
holy home inside
where there is no one.
Holy rite of here and now
cutting through a thought.


Holy's OE      for Julie

out of prehistoric kraut word
that English does as "whole"
also maybe "unimpaired
inviolate"

pure before & after
& during
the clear unavoidable
      
The words work
to & against
the ineffable
the Whole
sparked in a moment

"Sacred"?
"Divine"?
"Beyond"?
"Above"?
Madonna in tortilla
looking like Mel Gibson

"Time"?
"Space"?
Now?
Eternity?

Silent hermit sage
w/ long goatee
dipped into ink
to illuminate Zero

"Enlightened"?
"Delight"?
Aware
Awake
bow before altar
radiating incense?

Upright
arms raised
to full moon

Flat on chakras
counting stars
to add it all up

"Beyond words"
the auratic mall chain stores
w/ tier upon tier
of regret & promise

Ablution solution
cleanse the skin
of sin & tingle

"Unknowable"
blow-up rubber doll
of God or Buddha
or Christmas lights
woven into Moishe's beard

"Fathomless"
vertigo elevator
ascending
descending
in busy Disneyland
panorama of yearning

"Profound"
contact
Saran wrapped
devotee
               
What is holy's opposite?
Is it holy too?


Holy Taste      for David          

What connects us? Who
unpacks the bag of self?
Holy has no face
yet the mirror looks back. 
Nameless holy lives 
ready to be seen,
essence of the box
and all that’s out of it. 
Holy stills the pool
that drifts from here
to where you open,
floats your boat there,
takes on passengers.
How does holy do it?
Holds the empty cup
and fills it, wanders nude
in public, plays the fool,
bully, victim, sees the kin
between them. Holy walks 
the unmarked path,
keeps its dogma on a leash, 
sets it free, cooks it up
and eats it. 
Holy feast.


Holy Vibe      for Julie 

Holy rolling into spring
albino buds in spuds
                 
Deities kill w/ piety
mysteries abide
in the play of fire
                 
Our heavens
their hells
catapult out
into smashed space
to leak & drip
light sparks below
to all looking up

Holy the passport
through monitored gates
where beards & shawls
caul the saints
& destroyers
w/ equal finesse 

To crash through
the metaphysic windows
into blood seeing
all cowled red
w/ white fire aura
enchanted incanting
holy righteous
holy fist
holy disdain

Amazing fluidity of forms
whose faces reshape
with each gavotte

All see holy as whole
completely contained
one without division

Weapons slay infidels
cut away doubt
hearts beat & pump madly

in holy fists held high
                
Sacred secret of divine dysfunction
matricide
patricide
genocide
rape
mutilation
unroll the scroll

Divinities in
dyads
trinities
quaternities
crowd through
doors linked to
paradise & the elect ones

Children unsuspecting
inscribed by desire
to know & be beyond

Elders no longer suspicious
nor ambitious
succumb without question
or answers
into the holy maelstrom
              
Is holy
I the pod?
An app-
le suckled?

Holy muck
Ajax can't
erase

Gunk divine
in tangled lines

Slop popped
out of a zit
is holy. No?

Awake asleep
swimming through
the end
over & over again
               
Holy money
In God We Trust
let's occupy it

If it's trust
we do, what's
distrust's holy vibe?

          
Holy Onward          

Holy’s speechless sermon
sounds like everything
you know or not, deviceless
silence freeing space

holy cave lit w/tongues
burning to tell the truth
mouth full of the world
swallowing opinions, distinctions, ID
clouds of dust in Holy’s wake

Holy holds pain close, reveals its secret 
& cuts it loose, never turns away 
from the whole, Holy won’t break 
divide or conquer

walks over borders, past limits 
stands in breadlines, crosses party lines,
holds meetings & partings in an open hand
you shake with, takes the country
and gives it back different

Holy sits full lotus in the dirt 
on high chairs, office chairs, rocking chairs, 
toilets, stoops, head in the clouds 
& leaves each breath there

Holy knows why you ask when
who you think you are 
wants to know. Holy dreams
up everything, everywhere, 
everyone–all together now!

Holy goes on. 



Dedicated to David Meltzer 2-17-37~12-31-16