Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices

---

Tatiana Retivova

WORD OF MOUTH

TEMPLE




My house is my temple,
I am a mover and shaker
With the best of intentions.
Daily I genuflect
Within my body,
Its trembling walls.



They are
Made in China!
The walls are. So,
Help me God, are
All the artifacts
Contained therein.



For a mere tithe,
And a pittance,
These most favored
Nation's utensils
And silk cloths
Service our temples.



Tables and chairs,
Cutlery, curtains,
Bottles, lampshades,
Ceiling fan, extension
Cord, all, even the china,
Is made in China.



I must be also
Made in China,
To a certain extent.
My genetic makeup
Reads like a geneology
Of Eurasian despots.



Spanning the silk route,
They consummate
Their illicit love
On horseback,
Between flying golden
Arrows and the sound



Of their stirrups
Sweeping the steppe
Over fluctuating borders.
Fields of crushed poppies
Scattered haphazardly
In their sublime wake.



Eight centuries later
Reveal me with my
Mongolian birthmark,
Three centimeters
To the left of the dimple
Over my right buttock,



It beckons the wayward
Viking hero gone slightly
Berserk beside a slow brackish
River rising above marshes
And the smell of herring
Dripping from our mouths.






HOPPING TRAINS IN MONTANA

for Mike Steele



First of all it should be the summer
Harvest grain en route, precociously.
I am wearing my army surplus



Lumber boots made somewhere in
Oregon. For logging, they have
Steel toes and freeze at 40 below.



You are a cowboy from Bozeman,
Or so you say. Home from Nam
With Uncle Sam now



Paying for your pacific
Education. Lazily we wade
In the Blackfoot River



And study the trajectory
Of rainbow trout on the run.
Speaking of the Waste Land,



Of course, and how the
Women come and go, you
Recite Prufrock from memory.



Hoarfrost and the sound
Made by a timeless river
Rendered eternal already



By the bard of mill towns
And bars, of Duwamish head
And the various degrees of grey.



All form the background
Of a late summer day
Glossy with anticipation.



Our Wranglers are well worn:
Provenance - USA, circa '72.
A Mexican poncho covers the rest.



We are in uniform, incredulous
Already that we ever could be
History, which seems to belong



To ancient legionnaires
Making war in some desert,
Always some dusty desert.
Meanwhile we hear it from way
Over yonder, to and fro
Across the continental divide.



A faint roll of thunder grumbling,
Plainward in its distress.
My heart full of rhyme chirps



To avoid tripping over
"The herald of my rest."
You roll one and say,



"And indeed there will be time..."
As if we were merely scattering
The seeds of providence.



Oh the glamour of it all,
Being twice removed
From east and west,



Fate continentally contained.
A deck of cards cut randomly
In three careful piles.



To lose one's horse?
To wander Miller or Celine-like
In Paris, clueless and deranged?



Or throw a seine net into
The tepid sea? Inquire
Within. Better to go



Have a roll in the hay,
Any day. But then what?
When you can barely change



A flat tire or flip a lumberjack?
What good is Eliot in the pen-
Ultimate post modern world?



You never asked, I never
Volunteered. We merely knew
It was both good enough



And too good to be true.
This is how long it takes
For one long empty cargo train



To come slowly barreling down
Through canyons and valleys
Of the not quite Waste Land.



Were the brakemen all union,
I wondered? But how slow
Can it go? Never too slow



For hopping though.
I can still see the wagon
Through a Wyeth perspective.



Unkempt and in disrepair,
The tracks slick with creosote
You throw your guitar in



And jump first, all agility.
Jack be nimble, jack be quick.
Warily, I follow suit.



Behind us the icy peaks
Around Squaw's Tit sparkle
In the afternoon sun.



The upcoming topography
Unfolds as if in some slow
Reel to reel. There is nothing



Like keeping pace with the rhythm
Of an old cargo train ahead of schedule.
You take your time withdrawing.



Paying homage to the yodeling cowboy,
You sing, T for Texas, T for Tennessee,
And T for Tania, the gal who made a fool out of thee.



Decades later I latch on,
Gripping this memory more fiercely
Than I did the handle on the train.



Not really out of sentiment or
Nostalgia, no. My eyes as dry
As the scorched prairie.



I barely have any
Regrets. My personae
Have multiplied in Sibyl-like



Chronicles of disbelief.
With one foot in the Julian
Calendar and the other guess where,



I refrain from turning to salt.
One eye focused inward,
The second scanning the horizon,



I am merely waiting
For the appropriate moment
To hop another train.






WORD OF MOUTH




Could it be the same
Word once made
Flesh?



Or have I finally
Lost my mind?
In the funhouse now.



The surround sound
Of synaesthesia,
All synapses run amok.



The smell of kittens being born,
Smug, wet, and warm.
Nuzzling the teats, is a sign



From God. He resides
Avuncular
Over the House of Atreus.



While the Templars
Unite again, questionable
In their brotherhood,



With swords of Damascus
Swishing dangerously
At friend and foe.



Meanwhile the born white
Buffalo continues to turn
All necessary colors.



Like some latter-day Cassandra
I often quote in vain
From The Quiet American,



As I get exchanged
Like some spoil of war,
I read the writing on the wall.



I utter whatever Word
Chooses to bleed through me,
Becoming the blueprint



For the final unmaking,
Paving the way for Rome
And other Empires.



Word of mouth has it,
I have made the bed I lie in.
Whoever said



The Te Deum
Is tedious,
Should be hanged to rest.



Let the stalkers decipher my
Genetic code in cuneiform.
And the dead bury the dead.



Let the physicists
Measure the ratio
To quintessence,



All agreed finally
On the big bang
And that the universe



Is expanding. How
Many Words would it take
To fill it now,



The nymphomaniac galaxy?
That entropic, stellar womb turned
Inside out and still expanding.



-- 7 January 2001, Kiev, Ukraine