CHORUS: THE LEAP by JACK FOLEY
CHORUS: THE LEAP
JACK FOLEY

AN ELECTRONIC CHAPBOOK



CHORUS: THE LEAP

"A fascination with words for their own sake is almost inevitable for the
exile. Words and meanings become slightly detached from each other and the
meanings seem less secure and definite. Someone who writes in a foreign
tongue endows his adopted language with fresh nuances of meaning and often
breaks through the barren cliches of the native writer."
Keven Macdonald, "Emeric Pressburger: The Life and Death of a Screenwriter"

Dream light that reaches for us-
forsakes us-
Haven't you good reason?
This one, that one
aching-
"What of this 'crisis'? Have you had enough of life?"
A woman - you may have read this story - was plagued by what she regarded as
an irrational fear: she
dreamed she was leaping from an airplane and her parachute failed to open.
Her friends told her, "You must confront your fear. You must do something
about it."
So she took lessons, learned to jump from a plane, jumped.
Just as in her dream, her parachute failed to open.
On her way down
she may have thought (amid her terror):
"It wasn't an irrational fear;
it was a premonition."
Love
stays in my head
moves
downward.
What happens? Happened when I was fifteen? Or younger?
Is my life truly this jumble?
Wishing-
What loneliness chills?
Don't complain about it. Why shouldn't I fucking complain about it? Why
shouldn't I fucking do 
whatever needs to be done, do it now, god damn it
Love
may be nothing more than a word,
may be less-
nothing
The leap, she said, the leap you make - towards another? towards still
another?
Haven't you had enough?
The death of Ginsberg? Is that what's bothering you?
"You can write about it. I hope you can still do it."
Dream light,
The fullness of life,
the difference between oneself and others
There's quite a difference there, quite a difference. Hadn't you noticed?

               If man is losing faith in himself and in his most cherished
institutions, the        
               fact is one of far-reaching consequence. It may be noted that
the things   
               he is losing confidence in are those which have most glorified
the 
               individual capitalism, democracy, and Protestantism. Some
would 
               throw over capitalism, some would alter the imperatives of
democracy; 
               others would do away with corporations or abolish labor
unions. Still 
               others would turn back, bemoaning the fact that they ever left
the valley; 
               they are homesick for the old days. These last constitute a
very powerful 
               group, men who succeeded by their own efforts, who have become

               established; they view the dissatisfaction of their brothers
with mixed 
               alarm and disgust. They shout encouragement to those who
falter (YEA); 
               they yell imprecations at those who fail (BLEAH). But if we
examine their 
               antecedents, we are likely to find that most of them long ago
abandoned 
               the principles they teach, principles of individual action,
and that they 
               are successful because they have acted for corporate groups,
blocks of 
               human beings who have yielded their property and in some
measure 
               their own will to a power much greater than an individual.
They retain 
               their individualism only because they lead a group, not
because they act 
               as individuals. Viewing these indecisive people as a marching
herd, we 
               see them no longer moving with accustomed unity. The herd
wavers, 
               recoils before obstacles, and tends to become stubborn and
recalcitrant. 
               The members are no longer of one mind.



language
moves
into the heart
hopelessly measuring
syllable
by
syllable
breath -
"breath's burial"
"the association of writing with death" and breath
One hopes
to "live"

      Have you engendered anything? asks the saint (O'Toole)
      Have you brought anything to completion? 
      Wombtomb            Boombomb
      The struggle of mind with TEXTS
      And so there you are
      gazing at the stupidity of people in high places
      among the prize winners the culture-bringers
      the big "names"
      unable to name them without bringing
      disaster
      upon
      yourself

      (death?)

Have you ENGENDERED anything? asks O'Toole in his Irish accent
I had a child-- he's a man now. A few books. Ideas.
(Some that came toppling down upon me--Bless me, father!)
                    
I wish you to speak strictly says the saint
I want you to tell the truth

to desire
as D.H. Lawrence did
at the end of his life
(Lawrence much younger then than I am
now)
a "clean" death
a "passionate"
death -
watch out you see death walks up to you
smiling
(he has no plans for a funeral)
"Do not fear death"
(how can one help but fear death?)
"fear the mechanical"
what springs from life?
"Not every man has gentians in his house
in soft September, at slow, sad Michelmas"
"Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion"
how
to restore
the SENSE
of death
that
darkness
beyond
darkness
that
flowering
under
world
"bavarian gentians each one is a torch"
into the loam!
I hold the golden bough in my hand
the key
to
darkness   darkness   darkness


(shouted) MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN!

Who do you think you are? Cape, top hat, walking stick,
cream of the bourgeoisie, mountebank,
talker? With your companion spouse-person
Lothar (clearly not short for "Lothario")
People of color, women second in command,
not really quite it, you being it,      
you the magician, the one who makes things happen,
the one who transforms
everything, here, in this format clearly meant for chidren,
for me, then, hey, Mandrake, mandragora, "Get with
child a mandrake root," get with it child, you are your own
protector, this thin man with a mustache and a slightly distant manner
everything about him says: "control"--

If you can't be him you can buy him.

(How does one create
community
without acknowledging
the other)

 
 
verses questioning the solidity of fix'd identity, proposing mutability &
inherent emptiness (Sunyata) nature of 



                                                                     selfhood

                                                original task was to "widen
the area of consciousness"

                                                                I ate a
sandwich of pure meat: an
                                                               enormous
sandwich of human flesh;
                                                               I noticed,
while I was chewing on it,
                                                                 it also
included a dirty asshole.  

                                                                       Don't
hide the madness.









                                                                         Then
I knew
                                                              she was a
dream: and questioned her
                                                        - Joan Burroughs,
what kind of knowledge have
                                                                      the
dead? can you still love
                                                                      your
mortal acquaintances?
                                                                    What do
you remember of us?

                        I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
                               dragging themselves through the negro streets
at dawn looking for an angry fix

                under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset
Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision

                                                                 wept,
realizing how we suffer -
                                                   And how Death is that
remedy all singers dream of

                                 There, rest. No more suffering for you. I
know where you've gone, it's good

                                                                       No
flower like that flower

                                                               Blessed be
Death! Blessed be Death!

                                                              It will come on
the railroad, beneath
                                                            the wheels, in
drunken hate screaming
                                                              thru the skinny
machine gun, it will
                                                                come out of
the mouth of the pilot
                                                                the dry
lipped diplomat, the hairy
                                                                   teacher
will come out of me
                                                                  again
shitting the meat out of
                                                                my ears on my
cancer deathbed

                                                 I want to be there in your
garden party in the clouds




                                                                          all
of us naked
                                            strumming our harps and reading
each other     new poetry

                                                                         The
war is language

                                                                      How'd I
get into this fix,
                                                                       this
workaholic show-
                                                                       biz
meditation market?
                                                                       If I
had a soul I sold it

                                                                          for
pretty words
                                                                       If I
had a body I used
                                                                    it up
spurting my essence

                                                                    Allen
Ginsberg warns you

                                                                         dont
follow my path



                                                                           to
extinction

                                                              I here declare
the end of the War!



                                                                  Everybody's
just     a little
                                                                         bit
homo     sexual






                                                                       Please
master

                                How many Sundays wake and lie immobile eyes
closed remembering Death

                                  high blood pressure, kidneystones,
diabetes, misty eyes & dysesthesia -
                                 feeling lack in feet soles, inside ankles,
small of back, phallus head, anuso

                                                                   Death,
stay thy phantoms!

She wrote - 'The key is in the window, the key is in the sunlight at the
window - I have the key - Get married Allen
                               don't take drugs - the key is in the bars, in
the sunlight in the window.






                                                                        Love,
                                                                         your
mother'


                                                                           No
Harm
                                                                from the
invisible world
 
 
                                                                 Om Mani
Padmi Hum



Remembering
words or
"icons"
drift in a haze of
day's dazzle drifting into
your BODY
look, the swan ("cygne," "signe")
the dream which
"disturbed" - openly
my lips on your lips

"D0 NOT DISTURB OCCUPANTS" occupants are disturbed enough already
not thinking to

it was Saint Laurence O'Toole
came up to me and put
a finger on my shoulder
and said,
"Me by, wot other people have ye
disturbbbbbbed
wit yr
loud
cries
moaning here an there"
the bastard

dream

her lips open
to 
mine

fatigue
may mask
the refusal
to look
at 
something

Those days
I spent
hours
asleep
unable
to 
"rouse"
myself

"our little life"

fatigue

deth "hollow eyed"
it was O'Toole again
(he
flatters)

Sleep
this burden
will
fall from you
sleep 
childhood
whispers:
let go, give over, sleep

The possibility 
that
eccentricity
is
illness
unknown
The possibility
that your
founding
alienation
(everything
people tell me
is WRONG)
is illness
You mean you never thought of that before asks O'Toole Sheesh

when the
bases
of your art
fail
the procedures
by which
you maneuvered
language
seem suddenly
as arbitrary
as whatever happens to you
in the street
when the terror
of freedom
invades
you
this,
he sd,
is your only
moment

Are your
insights
nothing

And this one he sd
is a "star-
fucker"
Look at him
ooze his way
among the famous

sleep
mother is near
her body
just beyond
your
reach
sleep, beloved
sleep, let go
give over, time
touches
lightly
like a mother's 
touch 
time is sleep
sleep now
do not
reach over
that body
is gone
O'Toole of the significant surname whispers
sleep
put care
aside
sleep too
is
sickness

                    

                               Whew! What a day that was
                               We went to this little place (the
                               "Seabreeze")
                                to have breakfast and
                                on our way back
                                we
                                saw this
                                terrific
                                statue
                                on the corner
                                of Madison and 5th in Oakland and I
                                said
                                "Hey we have to 
                                get a picture of that"
                                and so
                                we went
                                back
                                for the
                                camera
                                and you know
                                "shot"
                                the statue
                                I kept
                                backing in
                                to
                                the
                                traffic
                                and you
                                said
                                "Hey
                                there's a
                                car
                                coming"
                                and I
                                had been thinking
                                of
                                Frank
                                O'Hara
                                and
                                his
                                AGONY
                                after
                                a
                                car
                                hit
                                him
                                Someone
                                said
                                "Frank"
                                and he turned
                                and saw
                                this
                                thing
                                coming at him
                                and
                                it wasn't
                                a
                                car
                                it was
                                his own
                                death
                                and I
                                kept 
                                "shooting"
                                the 
                                statue
                                and you
                                said 
                                "Jack"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------

                                                                 Tales of
horror
                                                                 (what do you
think about her?)

                                                                 Zero plug
                                                                 (too many
downtrodden)

                                                                 give me a
couple of bucks
                                                                 (so I can
spend it on wine)

                                                                 Tales of
lust and disaster
                                                                 (bad star)

                                                                 She said,
He's my best friend but I don't love him"
                                                                 ("I mean I
LOVE him but I don't LOVE him")

                                                                 formally
                                                                 (I should
shut my mouth)

                                                                 yahoo
                                                                 (what's it
to you buddy)

                                                                 she showed
me her stick
                                                                 (which was
all wet)

                                                                 riveted
                                                                 (by her mini
skirt)

                                                                 dark
                                                                 (mu-sic)

                                                                 fuck
                                                                 (you)

                                                                 cold
                                                                 (descends)

                                                                 in an hour
                                                                 (two)

                                                                 in a
                                                                 (day)

                                                                 till
                                                                 (tell) -

                                                                 poetry -
                                                                 your "real"
thoughts as you "really" live -

                                                                 how do we
account for this
                                                                (what is the
purpose)

                                                               "She is
married, O King of kings, to the goddess Isis whom she loves alone.
                                                                She is under
the protection of Isis and inviolate."
                                                                "That remains
to be seen, Shabaka."

                                                                 Bless me,
father

                                                                 Does the
poem "express"
                                                                 something or
does it "create" something?

                                                                 And if it
                                                                 creates
something
                                                                 what does it
create?

                                                                 "Poetry is
to make pronouncements," someone pronounced

                                                                 To what do
the words "bless" and "damn" refer? Do I believe
                                                                 any of it?

                                                                 Poetry is to
make pronouns!

                                                                 - on some
dark night
                                                                 - at least
you lie well
                                                                 - then I
knew
                                                                 - every man
bowed towards me, yes?

                                                                 Deep river,
                                                                 take my soul




Jack Foley
July 1997