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AS IF IT WERE “THIS IS OUR MUSIC”
— “mu” one hundred eighteenth part —
Heaved our bags and headed out again. Again
      the ground that was to’ve been there wasn’t.
Bits of ripcord crowded the box my head had
                                                                              be-
    come, the sense we were a band was back,
the sense we were a band or in a band . . . The
   rotating gate time turned out to be creaked,
                                                                              we
    pulled away. Lord Invader’s Reform School
       Band it was we were in, the Pseudo-Dionysian
Fife Corps, the Muvian Wind Xtet . . . The sense
   we were a band or were in a band had come
                                                                              back,
    names’ wicked sense we called timbre, num-
bers’ crooked sense our bequest. Clasp it tee-
   tered near to, abstraction, band was what to
                                                                              be
there was . . . Band was what it was to be there
     we shouted, band all we thought it would
   be. Band was a chant, that we chanted, what
                                                                               we
    chanted, chant said it all would be alright . . .    
A new band, our new name was the Abandoned
   Ones, no surprise. We dwelt in the well-being
                                                                                 that
       awaited us, never not sure we’d get there, what
   way we were yet to know. I stood pat, a rickety
     sixty-six, tapped out a scarecrow jig in waltz
time, big toe blunt inside my shoe . . . Who was I to
                                                                                        so
    rhapsodize I chided myself, who to so mark my-
       self, chill teeth suddenly forming reforming,
   who to let my heart out so . . . To be at odds with
                                                                                       my-
    self resounded, sound’s own City the wall I hit
      my head against, polis was to be and to be so hit . . .
  We heard clamor, clash, blue consonance, noise’s
                                                                                      low
    sibling
  sense





             ________________


  We pumped our arms as though they were
    pistons, elbows in and out. We nicked our
name to Abandon. Abandon was our name
                                                                          now . . .
      Thus was our music no music. Music too
  we left behind. Everything beside the point
    that there was no point, everything thus the
point . . . Thus was being there sibling sense
                                                                            gone
    treble, the balm to be a band the true amen-
  ity music was, the fact of having been there
                                                                            new
      to its Buddha-nature, the fact of having been
                                                                                   there
    moot


                        •


To have been there wasn’t dasein. No Hei-
    degger told my horse. Trussed up to
  the side it sat, pressed and preponderant,
                                                                         sov-
      ereign, self-contained, were it music the
  music we sloughed . . . Slipped accompa-
    niment, surrogate cloud, rapt adjournment.
Agitant. Surrogate cue . . . I kept clear of it,
                                                                         caught
    up at arm’s length, all but caught out I came
to see . . . Thus was our music no music it seemed
  I said, mujic more than music I might’ve said,
                                                                                might
      as well have said, no matter I mumbled other-
  wise under my breath . . . The Freedmen’s Debate
    Society our name now was, the Ox Tongue
Speaker Exchange. Fractal scratch. Nominative
                                                                                 ser-
  ration. Cutaway run, cutaway arrest . . . Thus was
    our music no music I did say, say’s default on
sing such as it was . . . We called it history even
                                                                                 so,
    insisted it, the it crowding the corner of eve-
ryone’s eye. None of us were not crept up on,
  none not required we sing it, say it. Thus was
                                                                               our
  say not
so





             ________________


  Beginning again for the muleteenth time,
    we counted off. It was our muleteenth
breakdown, muleteenth new beginning . . .
                                                                         Brass
      rubbed off on our lips, reed rubbed off as
    well, string steel left on our fingertips, stick
                                                                              wood
      left on our
  thumbs