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LINER NOTES: RHYS CHATHAM, “A CRIMSON GRAIL FOR FOUR HUNDRED ELECTRIC GUITARS

 

A nose for Gog the spool unwinds
Magog you go fast to Rhys and Shanghai
night clumps about. No reference
stalks the air tonight, the static
pull of endless and-so-forth awash with defection
with each step walking on water. Pool
for a while cancel and tear up (rhyme
with ear, rhyme with air) there
where world trade towers and shadows
corporate raid you, incorporate the you in
“ambiguity.” A cooler tone rings crunch
in the bucket knuckled under the way
you’d know from roadying.

This is about nothing. It’s clearing
the throat — all we’ve got to do
is stay ahead of the fear of saying something
or get just behind it and out it may come,
the perfect misses, nothing-muses
in every shade possible, traction
pulling the Cloud of Unknowingness, info
in range and canceling all extant contracts
it’s the force of five score suns, a pull
at the chest from within, the nose ahead
in the photo where you are in lines
overhead, where the sky is indeed
darkroom developed stains.