Muse-ic School

Byzantium

Coyotes midnight
clamoring by the
out houses on
Ruins Trail.

Katydids grinding
9 to 5 am:

endovsummer
endovsummer
endovsummer

Back to school.

From Latin. schola—
“leisure” Greek: skhole:
“a holding back,” stop, rest,
"leisure time taken for the practice
of dispute."

Like Kierkegaard, she practiced
the paradox of its being easier for
a non-Christian to become a
Christian, than for a “Christian”
to become one.”

Leslie Fiedler describing Simone Weil
& the notion applies to industrialized
school-ership: easier for a non-school-er
to become a school-er than a scholar to
become one: practicing leisurely dispute
like coyotes, katydids, & cicadae singing
out long summer afternoon’s delight, early
evening & small morning hours cranking
& ratcheting for the sake of argument.

I know school: been there; done that most
my life: public, private, boarding, day, night:
taught 7, 8, 10, 1l, 12^th & filled-in with 4^th.
Paddled by principals, suspended for smoking,
forced to switch handedness so as to fit a left-
brained world, cheated thru h.s. math & biology,
graduated college with a quality point grade
average right smack exactly in between an
equal amount of dumb & dumber as
smart & smarter: making me
a mean & average guy.


Capt. Miles Standish
“The Hero of New England”
His grand descendant Miles the 8^th
provided insight into math and
biological examinations for me.
We called him “Dish” in school &.
at the bowling alleys.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and
louder sing For every tatter in its
mortal dress, Nor is there singing
school but studying Monuments of
its own magnificence; And therefore
I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium

I teach music at Music School. We don’t
play music per se. We study it. We study
musicians & their music. We study people
who have studied musicians & their music,
but we don’t play music. This is music
school. Not play. There’s a difference.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in
a gyre, and be the singing masters
of my soul. Consume my heart away;
sick with desire and fastened to a
dying animal: It knows not what it is;
and gather me into the artifice
of eternity.

I teach singing at singing school.
We don’t sing at singing school.
We study singing: singing &
people who have studied
singing themselves, but
don’t themselves sing,
sang, sung seeing
as this is singing
school. Not
singing per
se.

Stealing & sampling & juxtaposing
Yeats & Leslie Fiedler re Simone
Weil reconfigured to fit my screen
& always always for the sake of
argument: any leisure time
disputation worth disputing
before school starts and
then no time & what’s
a college for?

xxxooo, Sam