This poem written by Michael McClure has inspired our Spring Summer 2010 collection
It talks about hallucinatory drug experience, the peyote is a form of mescaline that we could find in the Californian desert.
More to come soon.
Clear — the senses bright — sitting in the black chair — Rocker –
the white walls reflecting the color of clouds
moving over the sun. Intimacies! The rooms
not important — but like divisions of all space
of all hideousness and beauty. I hear
the music of myself and write it down
for no one to read. I pass fantasies as they
sing to me with Circe-Voices. I visit
among the peoples of myself and know all
I need to know
I KNOW EVERYTHING! I PASS INTO THE ROOM
there is a golden bed radiating all light
the air is full of silver hangings and sheathes
I smile to myself. I know
all there is to know. I see all there
is to feel. I am friendly with the ache
in my belly. The answer
to love is my voice. There is no time!
No answers. The answer to feeling is my feeling
The answer to joy is joy without feeling
The room is a multicolored cherub
of air and bright colors. The pain in my stomach
is warm and tender. I am smiling. The pain
is many pointed, without anguish
Light changes the room from yellows to violet!
The dark brown space behind the door is precious
intimate, silent and still. The birthplace
of Brahms. I know
all that I need to know. There is no hurry
I read the meanings of scratched walls and cracked ceilings
I am separate. I close my eyes in divinity and pain
I blink in solemnity and unsolemn joy
I smile at myself in my movements. Walking
I step higher in carefulness. I fill
space with myself. I see the secret and distinct
patterns of smoke from my mouth
I am without care part of all. Distinct
I am separate from gloom and beauty. I see all.
_______________________________________
(SPACIOUSNESS
And grim intensity — close within myself. No longer
a cloud
but flesh real as rock. Like Herakles
of primordial substance and vitality
And not even afraid of the thing shorn of glamour
but accepting
The beautiful things are not of ourselves
but I watch them. Among them.
__________________________________________
And the Indian thing. It is true!
Here in my apartment I think tribal thoughts.)
___________________________________________
STOMACH!!!
There is no time. I am visited by a man
who is the god of foxes
there is dirt under the nails of his paw
fresh from his den
We smile at one another in recognition
I am free from time. I accept it without triumph
— a fact
Closing my eyes there are flashes of light
My eyes won’t focus but leap. I see that I have three feet
I see seven places at once!
The floor slants — the room slopes
things melt
into each other. Flashes
of light
and meldings. I wait
seeing the physical thing pass
I am on a mesa of time and space
! STOM-ACHE!
Writing the music of life
in words
Hearing the round sounds of the guitar
as colors
Feeling the touch of flesh
Seeing the loose chaos of words
on the page
(ultimate grace)
(Sweet Yeats and his ball of hashish.)
_________________________________
My belly and I are two individuals
joined together
in life.
__________________________________
THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE
we smile with it.
___________________________________
At the window I look into the blue-gray
gloom of dreariness
I am warm. Into the dragon of space
I stare into clouds seeing
their misty convolutions
The whirls of vapor
I will small clouds out of existence
They become fish devouring each other
And change like Dante’s holy spirits
becoming an osprey frozen skyhigh
to challenge me.
