Smith/The Congregation

SMITH

made the laws and made anti-laws
upto her Jesus eyeballs
in mother-blood keratin totem-heads courage
as a Commanche squaw
somehow conscientious and acquiline
in vein-blue voodoo-doll forge
hammering sails and siren winds
for who'd sail clandestine
to New York or London or Babylon
or anywhere there's no Bourse
embodied in black-and-white flag
angular and hoofed and Manichean
voice vying with the roof-boss
scraping into DNA systems
as if with copper and burin
engraving a Southern Cross
channelling back to her mentor's
playground on Golden Square
a full moon menstruating
Mass in A Minor



THE CONGREGATION

of friends made over the decades
and friends not made

a left-of-centre tribe looking for the invisible

her ego it would be... her Loy

Raine was on the stool of the church-organ, not
playing

Tarkofsky loomed from within a stained-glass window,
not filming

the Urizens did not know what to expect... a huge
heart?

what the Luvahs knew...

they queued on Eagle Place round the holy block

Los and sons evident, hammers in their cordruoys

and Crow and Kaos and Rainboy and Robes

but not Lord Butler

in the green room the singer asked for hot water
(her raw-hole throat)

Ben told butterfly movie

she wrote her set-list

Sufism

the American woman succumbs

she'd shanghaied the Red Snapper to play on guitar

made thousands of mistakes and she don't lie - Erato -
ten
for each member of the congregation

two falls and a third fall

black lambs and white lambs burning into the
sheep-clouds

A Minor played on our spines with
melancholic/schizophrenic grins

she entered us, irremovably

stood by the baptismal font with an accordion camera

next day we worked out who the "rice woman" was

the smith don't squeak


mmmmmmmmmmmmmm(For Patti Smith, who played songs, told stories, and recited poems in St. James Church to celebrate William Blake's birthday, on November 28, 2006.)

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