14. GREAT LUCK THE FIGHTER HAS

GREAT LUCK THE FIGHTER HAS

Great luck the fighter has who -

leaning back on the ropes - falls to

the stands as those ropes break;

who - clutching the mouthpiece in

his clenched teeth - gets hit in the jaw

and gags on it instead.

Who gets punched out of his boxer shorts.

Who falls UP instead of down after a hard left

hook that does him in. Who falls only so

slowly to the mat where he finally passes

out - no mere TKO this, a full-blown KO instead.

Who, when he sits back on his corner stool,

has the stool break beneath him and gets

impaled by the broken shaft of a leg.

13. NO ONE WHO KNEW COLUMBUS

NO ONE WHO KNEW COLUMBUS

(Columbus Day, 2008)

There weren't too many people to tell him much -

certainly William Carlos Williams, nor even Walt

Whitman, weren't around. The local hum he heard

probably pretty much reinforced his ideas for King

and Queen, travel and glory - all the crazy sea-faring stuff.

Had no one mentioned to him the scale of his undertaking?

What about all that 'edge of the sea' stuff ('Bunkum!' or whatever

he'd say in his tongue) and the terrors of the deep, sea-monsters,

sirens, wedgies, funnels and shoals. And then of course all that

Savior-Jesus stuff : some sea-wizened Admiral taking tips

from a guy who walked on water? How'd that come to be?

Joseph, Mary and Jesus, a tri-color flag, three ships,

three sails each, three miles an hour on an

ordinary day, three trips back, three times a lady,

three blind mice, three times you're out -

I don't know about you, but I'd have gone bonkers

early on. The primitives were no help :

naked bawdy bastards lining the coast,

laughing in turn at all that armour and heavy clothing;

laughing at the rituals of fake royalty claiming this

or that for Her Majesty Queen Isabella!

I can hear one say now, along the shore,

in whatever tongue they spoke -

while grabbing his balls - yelling out

'Claim this ! you friggin' bastards!'

Or, anyway, it had to be something like that, no?

Otherwise, what went on? Nobody made any money,

nobody ate well, everyone stayed confused,

and none of those wild ladies would do the

dance - if you know what I mean.

So, no one who knew Columbus, I figure,

ever really said a thing.

12. AND WELL WE HAVE CREATED AN EARTH

AND WELL WE HAVE CREATED AN EARTH

(once Goodness overflowed the deep)

There is an interdiction between the ways of

God and Man. It's drawn from a cleavage,

as between water and rock: things flow out,

clear water icy cool or the fires and smokes

of volcanic eruption and wrath. That Which Is

separates the two - a rod and a staff together

break through the morass and confusion :

as on a clear morning in Eden when all things,

at Peace eternally, co-existed within a full

awareness of possibility, surety and warmth.

Thoughts filled the great immensity

and goodness itself overflowed the deep.

That now is all gone - fumbling ways of Man,

new ires of the Gods, marks by simpletons

on the barrels of rifles and guns and armaments

of every nature splattered doubt and derision

upon Nature's walls. We are marked now only

by our ledger books - old and dreary, with

erasures and scratch-outs tearing through the pages.

It is so far gone and it is so long over.

A once delicate infusion of life and grace

is now a'sunder - a broken waste.

Remember though always:

once Goodness overflowed the deep.

11. STRAIGHT TALK

STRAIGHT TALK

Life comes from Life;

doubt comes from doubt

and pain comes from pain.

Death comes from Death.

It's all so simple really -

we have categories of moment and

categories of expectation and we

MAKE come forth from each that

which comes forth.

Laughter and Happiness, therefore,

come from Laughter and Happiness;

both together entwined as vines and

plants which have grown together.

The target is nothing at all

though the aim is very, very

true.

10. AND ALL THIS RANDOM CATERWAULING

AND ALL THIS RANDOM CATERWAULING:

Firewall eponymous words

Gregory Peck University

don't forget anything and write it all down

catastrophic ministrations and the

awesome wail of Hadrian Buell:

'man I'm too tired to breed' -

a string of one-liners like a streamlined airliner

and the Titanic on the 14th of June

I SWEAR I saw it listing in the harbor -

warmify the heart dead Lincoln

come above where the air is clear

find the hundreds of prisoners where they sit down below -

engine room steaming rank air hot

every hand clutching parts of steel -

the old grub-wood is cracked and dark

yet it functions still as the tiller and lead :

those who say 'all is well and well is more than enough'

have really no idea of what they say -

it bespeaks smoke and bad language

all things the jail overflows with

THEREFORE:

let us find the killer who still lives

and let us then flay him alive

lay him low and labor at forming his death.

9. LEST THEY HUNKER DOWN

LEST THEY HUNKER DOWN

They rode west. They left spires and towns in their wake.

Backroom bar-deals and cemetery boots were what they'd

subscribed to along the way - the cost was the dues they'd

have to pay : hangings at dawn, lynching parties and posse-

parties, dragging the hombre through town on a rope.

The dust made circles in the air as they dragged this guy along.

Eventually his dead pulpy body made red-rag splotches

along the hard-caked dirt-soil roadway - right past the

saloon and the barber's, the doctor's and the jailhouse.

No one said a word - they just stared at the action and

wondered 'what's next?'

This was how it happened - the lumberyard had the

wood for the box in which they'd bury him. Boot Hill

and all the rest - like nails in a coffin, time in a bottle,

never looking back, riding at dawn and all those

forlorn and caustic cowboy sayings.

'Lest they hunker down, boys, let's shoot 'em

where they live.'

8. IN A WAY OF SAYING IT ALL TOGETHER

IN A WAY OF SAYING IT ALL TOGETHER

There's a summer sky somewhere just rolling away -

water to boil, ice cubes on the grill, or something

very immaterial like that. The big white clouds,

having now learned to assert themselves, are

bundled at the horizon just waiting to bring in

the very next storm.

Some silly farmers are gathering their sheaves,

some planted housewife is bending over, somewhere

else, feeding her chickens and ducks. Ah! All

this useless movement - for something, for nothing,

for everything, for none.

A long time ago I washed my own hands of all these matters.

Now, I seek nothing, buried as I am as a planted seed in

a fertile ground but - taking a stance at last - still refusing to grow.

As someone once said - 'it little matters what we do now,

what counted is what we did then.'

7. I HAVE LOST YOU

I HAVE LOST YOU

(Monday in Hell)

I have lost you, perfectly perpendicular

to the plane of my heart. It is not a momentary

thing, since it goes to the root of all matter.

Three guys like Kings are washing the street.

Once they would have had a throne but now

even they must work. It is like that with broken

hearts too - no longer placed upon a golden pillow,

they too must earn their keep.

6. EDWARD THE TABLETOP

EDWARD THE TABLETOP

('to matter any more')

He was six feet tall by a day.

He wore muffins for ears and carried

a very broad flagellant stick to the

daily camp-meetings. There had been (really)

nothing like him seen before.

It wasn't in invisible manners that he excelled,

but rather the slow dispersal of ancient things

and the way he talked about matters which

mattered.

He had once been a leader of all lands -

now reduced to a pestilence of rubble his

once-proud kingdom suffered like oil on a stove:

burning away in smoke, losing all manner of things.

Someone once mentioned him in passing -

but after the deluge it was far too late

to matter any more.

5. The Regular Doctor Was a Saducee

THE REGULAR DOCTOR WAS A SADUCEE

It is not possible that two people can occupy

one and the same place. Time, although it does

overlap, bears witness to ways that the physical

world cannot. We enter realms of thought at will;

you must move a door to enter a room.

I therefore cannot place you in proper context.

It is your shadow which treads so sloppily

over the countertop and the damask - leading

me to see only obscure edgings and broken lines.

If you were not present, I'd at least be sure of that.

There were weeks at a time when I could do nothing

but walk along the sand. Minarets and windstorms,

oases and hazy figments are all that kept me going.

Water itself became like a horrid dream. I'd memorized,

before I left, prayers and chants for this sort of thing.

Yet even they failed me.

The task was too slow, my energy

too feeble and my meaning too vague.

I'd tried to be a crusader, and instead - like

some optimistic missionary in the darkest woods -

I'd lost my way and lost my definition. Merely a ghost

of myself, I stumbled on with legs hurting, knees cracking,

lips broken and dry. Stuttering for something to say, I grunted

for food and drink. It all came down to nothing.

Shadows and the sun, camels and some prayer shawls,

a chador among some desert women.

Everyone scoffed at what I'd done.

My task was, however, completed. I could die...

sure now of my own salvation.

4. CITY CEMETERY

CITY CEMETERY

I wonder is it correct to say: 'Rather than sleep,

I would die.' Being out of time, I will say it

anyway. There are just not that many moments left for

me to squander that which I have done with the paling reverie

of a constant and steady sleep. Dreams are nice, but life is

better. I would rather be active than sleeping.

There are far too many stories - the horrors and

indiscretions that cause death. Hit and run drivers,

fleecing the moment with a drunken speed and leaving bodies

behind which splatter and twitch. Swift in pursuit, the others

who chase...But for what? It's all over in a while anyway.

Time is but a logic filled with both grief and doubt - twisted

up and set on its ear. We miss the point by caring. There is no end -

As there was no beginning.

3. SHOSTAKOVICH

SHOSTAKOVICH

It as said in passing : 'I never sought doubleness' -

yet, we live with duality, for this is a life of two things:

for every darkness, light; for every sorrow, a requisite joy.

Or is it not that way? We live this life, alone, as one

unbroken aberration - comforted as we are by what we choose;

the flesh, the mind the color, the darkness, the win, the lose.

I heard the shimmering music on a Tuesday noon.

Sitting down with a passion, I listened intently,

singular in my search for something between the notes,

astride the lines; as dead of hope as a man would be

about to die for something he'd not even done.

'When I tried to analyse the reason for the

devastating impression of the Fifth Symphony

made on me, I came to the conclusion (alone)

that its musical qualities, no matter how great,

were by themselves not enough to create that effect.'

A hand extended lifted me up. No indignation at pressure,

I went with the flow - note and quality, shadow and show.

I first heard the music on a Tuesday noon.

2. Easter Radio (1993)

EASTER RADIO

My name is something; I am farther

along the evolutionary scale than you would think.

In the old Woolworth's the salt shakers tilt,

craning avidly their necks to peer at

girls walking by - well, what used to be girls.

The wan, disheveled women once were

something - must have had loves and passions,

yet now seek the glorious green that dwells

among the cut-rate pricings of

yellowed saran-wrap and old iced tea.

What it makes for me is boredom:

ancient cart-loads of awesome and tired

boredom, seeking home behind an early

Currier and Ives print crookedly splashed

on cheap point China made somewhere

deep in the idle Philippines.

The voice on the radio says Jesus rose

from the dead. Caparnum or catharsis, he

would surely have stopped here by now.

1. NOT ALONE

BUT IN THAT I GUESS I'M NOT ALONE

There are and always have been things I won't talk about -
but in that I guess I'm not alone :
the manner in which possessions pile up
the way they all get dusty
the mess I left behind
the disarray I live amidst
the way I race through time
the manner I try to cover-up my flaws
the regret I always face
the million little times I looked at myself in disgust
the thousand things I didn't do
the hundred times I could have :
there's no sense going on -
the gargoyle on the corner still laughs at my regrets
the featureless blanks of the chimney pipes run
rainwater down on my head and the guttersnipes
of the curbway near me throw back
their ridicule into my face.
There's NOTHING I can do nor should anyway
for I have certainly not yet died
nor found hunger as companion
nor withered from disease
nor staggered home with blood dripping
from some open wound.

NO NO I am sound and of good mind
with just too many things to do (it seems)
and not enough whatever it is to do them
- or at least to do them well -
and I tell myself I will.
I tell myself I will a hundred times a day
and try to guide my landings through the
marshgrass of mistake and trepidation
though it doesn't always work

(I have landed on my ass I have landed on my head
those times my feet were absent where they should have been instead).

I've taken chalkboard to my knee and tried to write it sensibly:
the everything of everything
the why I've mastered nothing
the things I've missed and what I've grabbed
the means I've been sent packing.
I've no fame nor manner.
I've in fact got nothing of renown or worth -
only sensible moments of insensitive time
and things so little missed I don't remember
'til I find what it was I forgot I'd lost.

It's all so simple really - THINGS ARE RUNNING DOWN

and so am I.

But I LOOK at the morning sky and still find hope (though little)
still watch the rising sun come o'er the open sky
and brighten something like a day until it fades away
- alas no moment such as this is ever right
but yet recurs three hundred times and more a year
to no avail or some I suppose
: memento mori memento omnia memento Maury
- whoever he may have been.

I shake a whorlstick at Father Time
as he races down a hill -
(that old fart will stumble before long - oh I know he will).
I challenge the matter of death and potential
and any future skirmish with meaning and free-will;
FOR YOU HAVE MADE ME NOTHING Lord
or whatever I'm supposed to call you now -
YOU have made me as invisible as gas
and as sick in the gut as a dead man can be
JUST RIGHT before he goes -
that's all that matters and that's all that shows:
BUT I GUESS I'M NOT ALONE.