We're really excited to bring to you a new suite of poems by Michael McClure, who began his career as a young member of Kenneth Rexroth's San Francisco Poetry Renaissance, read with Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder at the seminal Six Gallery Poetry Reading that launched the Beat Generation poetry scene, and then began a new phase of his career as a controversial playwright in the 60's and 70's. McClure was part of the 1967 San Francisco Be-In, co-wrote "Mercedes Benz" with Janis Joplin, and continues to write fresh, lively and relevant poetry infused with nature consciousness and textual experimentation.

Mysteriosos

by Michael McClure

MYSTERIOSO O N E

LOVELY. LOVELY AND ANCIENT AND FOXED
with rusty brown spots as the oldest
IMMORTAL PRINCESS,
or the Bodhisattva Kannon as a simpering
and infinitely generous
OLD WHORE.

How surprised we are at what passes
in past and future
for the scent of apples.
I

M
U
S
T
know more about the skin and muscles
and the wall of stars two billion light years long;
I
T

I
S

all
QUICK
! ! !

MYSTERIOSO T W O

HUNGER. HUNGRY. HUGE CAVERNOUS HOLE.
HOLDING TORN BEINGS IN TRANSITION.
Lives devouring the path into light
of blackness. Inside of a cricket.
A BIG SHINING FACE WITH EYES
filling the room. Roaming
without movement. Searching for food
ARISING AROUND.

Hormones, fats, and proteins
WEARING
EMERALD

G
E
N
O
M
E
S

in a boiling sea vent.

There is a cloud leopard
with a baby's face.

MYSTERIOSO T H R E E

HORMONES. HORMONES WITH LION FACES. EVEN
WITH WHISKERS. MANED HORMONES GRINNING,
and swimming as they swim in deltoid shoulder muscles
--as our arms beat on the warm high waves.

V
E
N
O
U
S
meat soup on a wheel.
Spinning. Splashing out walkers.
Singers. Flyers,
TINY EATERS.
Innocence
is driven by lion faces.

Dreams being flesh
in a universe of wings
R
E
A
L
M
S

of glorious sound.

MYSTERIOSO F O U R

A CHUNK OF LAPIS. (CHUNK) HELD BY THE SILVER
ON MY WRIST. ORANGE
beads of coral. Pitted with cavities
OF AGE.
Encircling the blue-black stone flecked
WITH GOLD.

(T
h
e

m
a
g
i
c.)
THIS SCIENCE IS LOVE.
The tiniest microbe
lies adjacent to the larger.
A CHUNK
feeding and receiving
in a secret ocean.
Glowing like a new bodhisattva
and an etched line by Rembrandt.

Plain as snakes' eyes.

MYSTERIOSO F I V E

CORRUPT AND DIMPLED BY IMAGINATION.
Nothing corrupt. Perfect as a griffon by Blake. Corrupt
as a cloud of unknowing
visioned beneath the underside of the belly.
ME,
OUTSIDE OF IT RISING (while it rises)
INTO BEINGS WITH CORN FIELDS.
A REDWOOD FOREST.
ENCIRCLING A DAYDREAM
growing living fur of sables.

I

K
N
O
W

T
H
I
S

and remember old friends
living or dead for a moment.
Reflections around
MY BARE KNEES
in the stream.

MYSTERIOSO S I X

PAWS. TO ALL PAWS LIVING AND DEAD.
Nebulae glitter on claw tips by soft pink pads.
No pause to the smell of bosomy fennel
in vacant lots by crumbling
RED BRICKS
when the rain starts.
A DEER AT THE TOP OF THE HILL.
Mist and a star in his antlers.
I am here without paws. Searching
for the trillion billion senses.



D
I
S
P
R
O
V
E
all but imagination,
INSPIRATION,
and the reflections, and counter-reflections, of energy.
Sow bugs sleeping in cold owl burrows
dream destinies
AND FIRE.

MYSTERIOSO S E V E N

SENSE. SENSE OF THE CANDLE'S LIGHT.
SILVERY GLOW. FEATHERY STAR OF THE HALO.
Sparks flicker the fingertips. Field of creatures
nestled on the tongue. The nose. The fern.

Feel the real muscular animal power.
The sense of haunches and wrists is reason.
Reason is non sense draped
in velvet of senses
AND WHISKERS
and blood streaming veins.
Blind till caution is shattered
like a wind shield.

H
E
R
E

I
S

SOUL MAKING.

Ordinary, useless, lovely
as a beggar dying
in cold shadows
by her cardboard box.

MYSTERIOSO ( ( A ) )

BUILD. BUILD BOLD LOVING ARMS.
Build new love. Over and over.
Boulders on the sea shore.
Build with the fecal smell of the final wreckage
and roaring smoking destruction.

Morph the feared and debased
into luxury
OF CONSCIOUSNESS
as
a microbe
on a wet boot sole
in a movie theater
creates the energy of stars.

NOW
WE
ARE
EAGLES
in the realm of eagles' wings.
(NOW WE ARE AUTOMATONS
of reductionist technology. )
BUILD LIFE. BUILD DEATH. FREE OF THE WHEEL.

MYSTERIOSO (( B ))

STAND. UNDERSTAND. STAND PAT ON THE SENSES.
THE EYE SEES MORE
than the heart knows.
Stand up in the peace horrors
and decadent war.
Admit the deep power
and
your love
of torture.
THE TEASING OF FLESH.

Say, this too is a shape of love
before love.
Now it is time to choose:
"NO!
NO, TO THE HIDEOUS
LOVELINESS."
Soon I will protect
all beings
and
stand softly
with a big smile.

MYSTERIOSO E I G H T

BLACK ARISEN TO BLACK ROSES IS VOICES
BETWEEN PETALS.
The yellow centers with anthers
B
E
G
I
N

WITH BLACK.
Lonely. Sweet as honey.
Overpopulated by blossoms and petals.
Consciousness narrowly streams
like a nematode, muscularly,
between plastics and hunks
OF MANUFACTURED THOUGHT.
Through births of new hatreds
--poisonous as ever.
Greedy for ignorance
as a sitcom.

And we stretch
in this bed

touching shoulders
just as whales and mice
do.

MYSTERIOSO N I N E

FORGIVE CORE OF THE MEAT. FORGIVE MEAT FLESH.
Forgive rage. Also kindness. Touch gentle
in this strange spot.
ALWAYS VISITED. THE CORE OF ALL REALMS
--of chickadees, tadpoles, living droplets, blazing minuscule
FURNACES.

A TRILLION BILLION
INSIDE
OF ANOTHER
LIKE AN ONION,

spraying heavens
that intermix

while
we
slide
through
shallow crevices.
EMOTIONS. WATERFALLS.

Frozen ponds
with goldfish
alive and swimming
in the black water.
YES! --AND MUCH MORE

SING!

MYSTERIOSO T E N

GREEN GRASS IN RAIN. BLUE-GREEN EYES.
Grass calling up yellow violets. Root
notes seethe back and forth. Aligned
to the flash of no matter.
NADA
OF
GREEN SPRING
in midwinter. "Spring up
green freshet." Blue-green eyes,
nourish like the storm
and horse head cliffs.

PLIANT DIMENSIONS.
Interludes
L
A
U
G
H
while lipids turn over dancing
and thundering under deer hooves.

A HANDFUL
OF MYRIADNESS.

Finished at Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico

MYSTERIOSO E L E V E N

STREAM OF FACES. FACES ON SAND GRAINS
UNDER THE OSPREYS AND HIGH GREEN WAVES.
STREAM OF ROARING NEURON LACE,
S
I
L
E
N
T
as pink buds of peyote.
Free in the preserve the soul inspires.
No beginning or end
(like a pelican gliding low over breakers
where the night will be star sparks.)

M
E
A
T.
PLAIN RED MEAT,
PLAIN DULL THING. STREAMING
BULK OF DELICATE HULKING IMAGINATION
VAST AND FAR LESS AND TINIER TOO.

Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico

MYSTERIOSO T W E L V E

ENERGY OF DARKNESS. ENERGY OF LIGHT.
Each is a speck of the other,
hallucinations of being,
when what matters is the interwarmth
of our eyes
IN
THIS
almost secret
place.

Mined out of a wall of turquoise and gold

SOFT WINGS ON OUR BROWS
ARE NOT
like the sprays of the blue-black spumes
from our foreheads.
THE NEW
BLACK COAT
is the skin of a mammal
in candle light.

War enters on mammoth feet,
and courage and the energy of Reason respond.

MYSTERIOSO T H I R T E E N

SMILE. SMILE WITH THE SOFT EDGE
OF THE MIND.
Pliant as the lip of an abalone.
Strong as the smallest worm in it's harshest
and tenderly nourishing realm.
NO MIND. NO BODY. GONE. GONE.
I stroke my hands over my chest
and your buttocks
WE
SMILE
INSPIRED
by protein pleasure
and loveliness.
So solid.
We defeat presence or nothingness.
All of me and all of you
ARE
this cameo of perfection
with smooth polished edges.

THIS
IS
REALLY IT!

Photo contributed by panta_rhei

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