If you don't know

Stop reading,

if you've not yet seen the stars in the canopy of midmorning forest;

the bearded faces in the trees nodding their approbation.

Stop,

if 'Whistle and I'll Come To Ye, my Lad' isn't the curse of

nightmare borne to Caledonia and it's outer regions

of English karma disguised as

one random McKennabeast: M.R. James conjuring Alan Watts;

Because this secret section is too dirty

and too sacred 'all 'a oncet'

as is spoken in the hot swamp kitchen backroom fragrant,

where you sit on overturned buckets and play your last hand to lose

because there's gators.

You'll need your bond to keep you free,

and for the Love of Jesus we stand the South enslaved,

a holy sacrifice gambler.

This is for the man in the peacoat somewhere

nearly the turn of the century,

affixed to the sidewalk in the Tenderloin Districts

Of All Port Cities,

watching Aphrodite leave the dancehall,

glasses glinting on his pale face-

mouth stressed, hands tightly jammed into pockets.

If you've never seen the Goddess dancing naked,

just leave.

If you don't know that oneway glass is a two way street

and he flung himself around that bleach scented booth

a frenzy crazed,

a frenzy crazed, a frenzy crazed, a frenzy.

A gun.

Stop reading.

If there be no distant memory of the exact scent of heavy dusted velvet

her head rising from the grief of pain, finally.

If you don't know the smell of empty vials and wine bottles,

turpentine,

chafed fingertips and the dirt in the deep cracks

or piss in a dark alley,

Stop.

If you've not had the Gods of death speak to you in the

sonorous bells that chime cities of cold winter lung pain;

or the hot breath of fierce drunkards deep in days of blackout,

who continue a centuries old clear as glass conversation with you

about the why It is,

and the how looking away is the music, is the world, is the fucking cure.

If you've not been wed to Dionysus,

then raped and abandoned by him,

if He doesn't know your name as his one true love forever.

Put it down.

Because from this point forward

we're telling the olde story, in gentle pieces,

for the broken people, with sharp edges' glint.

The unspoken volumes

are fixin' to echo

in the voices of the many,

reading this silence into themselves.

Not for the soft gutted.

Best you put this down.

You would know the sitting with the very dark discomfort

and the smile of deep disappointment beaming a better future.

You would know the hope of birthing,

and the ultimate trust of desperation.

The power of Alone,

the River of Words.

If you don't know,

you ken.

And now, you'll know

The real Kenn.

We'll speak of the stars upon it,

how even the very water carries the light;

and about the color of the sky:

what blue means,

how the scarlet blood runs wetly

on fields raining torn bodies;

sigils in the rivulets, my friends.

Sigils in the rivulets.

Of coming through crazy out the other side

with the Legions of Survivors.

You'd dream the next dimensions- some in time,

some yet to be so.

What has been sung nascent into the present

into the depths of cerulean darkness,

strong voices singing all travellers beyond the fire.

Yes, that story:

The one you don't know,

but you ken.