"Damon regards language as prayer thought. His lines move w/a strange speed of
wonder yet w/an ear towards new found sound. This is good music." — Thurston Moore

"A man digs a trench. Another begins to sing. Harmless enough for a start. So we
trustingly follow the clear logical steps — and suddenly find ourselves on the other
side of the mirror, in a new dimension of thought. From here, our daily predicaments
seem both funny and sad, but always marvelous. In the end, a person may enter the
groove of a record and become pure vibration. ‘Before me, and after me, came the
most beautiful trumpet solo.’"— Rosmarie Waldrop

Published by Turtle Point Press
Publication Date: October 5, 2004
ISBN: 1-885586-95-7 Price: $14.95
To purchase "The Memory Theater Burned"

Three poems from "The Memory Theater Burned"

The Memory Theater Burned
The memory theater burned, and in its ruins I could remember only portions of scripture, commentary, history, poetry, biographies of notable men, successful recipes, homeopathy, botany, and the classification of animals. I do not wish to fill the world with nonsense, but I cannot recall these pieces without supplying connective elements; and so I am constructing, anew, my own hybrid theater. Some of its niches are now supported by boulders or crude timbers. Some are covered in cloth so as to hide their ruination. I loved the theater, in its perfection; and I am pained to see it in fragments. But fragments are all I find, and what I find is all I can remember.

Kaddish
In mourning for myself, I did nothing for a year that reminded me of my personality. I read religious tracts (I am a non-believer); traveled the world (I am agoraphobic); wrote novels (I am inarticulate); and sang songs (I am tone deaf). At the end of the year, I mended my clothes and resumed my personality. But I was now a public figure, famous for my singing, my novels, my travels, and my spiritual inner life. My former self had died, and so I have returned into mourning.

Song Without Words
My instrument is easy to play, and I played it for hours on end. People make a fuss at times, but really it is an easy instrument, and if I became especially proficient on it, it was only because it is so easy to play that I played it often. Eventually, for variety, I began to play the instrument in unusual ways; that is, I played diferent parts of the instrument than are typically used, and I used my body in new ways to play it. These were just small adjustments and inventions I introduced to amuse myself. Joyfully, I played the instrument with my whole body, stamping my feet, clapping my hands. And one day it occurred to me: If I play with my whole body, why do I not sing, too? So I began to sing while I played my instrument. I played, and I stomped and clapped, and I sang as well. But as I sang, I began to think of the words I was singing — these were simple words, both sad and happy ones I had picked up from diferent lullabies or folksongs I remembered hearing in childhood. The words, though simple, began to afect me. I thought about them more and more often, and they began to take on greater import than I had at first realized. These phrases, taken at random from my memory in the midst of the joy of playing my instrument, began to trouble me. It seemed to me that I had pulled my very memory from my body, and flung it out into the road where I stomped and clapped, disrespectfully dancing across my own thoughts. My mind, emptied of these memories, became obsessed with them. I wanted to re-collect them, stuf them in again and forget them as thoroughly as I had before. But the memories, remembered, wouldn’t go back. They were there every time I played my instrument, emerging from my voice. And as I played constantly, they were constantly there. I began to live only through these memories. My playing took on a dirge-like, mournful tone. People were saddened to hear me play. They crossed the street, or themselves, when they saw me coming — stomping, clapping, and yelling out my memories, the memories that were now forever before my face. Eventually, I could no longer play my instrument, easy as it is, while I sang. Singing was a struggle with my mind, and my body, always content to simply play my instrument, could not manage without my mind. Finally, I lost the ability to play my instrument. I picked it up as often as before, but my body wouldn’t respond. I stood still, clutching my instrument, screaming the phrases that had jumped from the depths of my mind, which had nowhere else to go.

Never, no matter how easy your instrument, begin to sing.