114. FULL MOON AND SEARCHING

FULL MOON AND SEARCHING
(Asbury Park in Winter)
No more looking for gold or searching in
penny arcades - that's all over and the monkey-men
and the organ-grinders have all been fired. That
leaves nothing behind. Wherever there was an emblem
before is just now a blank spot on the wall.
-
No soporifics here. I merely do what I want.
My dalliance with the likes of you and Matilda too
is over : both of you were lovely but now I wish you well -
at the wishing well. And, at this wishing well, I just
want to tell you both that I did love you, each, once.
-
No more magic in the cornflakes.
No more lame jokes in line at the
outdoor gym - waiting pompously for
the big guys to pass. As if you had something
to prove to them (they could break you in two
like a stick). The sickly ocean is still roaring
behind our backs. The black dudes, with their knives,
are still trying to stare us down on the ramp to the
Howard Johnson's. The old Boardwalk now looks
like shit - prime real estate it ain't. Let's just say adieu.
-
That'll have to do.

113. THE HANDLERS

THE HANDLERS
Names fall like leaves from a tree -
people saying this or that.
'There's not a moment to lose, he was
so sad when last I saw him.'
Someone put the whisper in the suitcase,
the two mints in the backpack, and they
were off : 'we're packing shoes for Valparaiso,
new lineaments for Kenya, and even bottled water
for when we hit the Rhine.' Everything at that
point was so very simple. This girl, Anya, I'd
known since seventh grade. Her parents had
been refugees from Iceland or Belgrade,
somewhere having trouble holding
people in. Her traveling companion now,
some weary guy named Dieter, had entered
like a boxer from a storm : all brawn and sweat,
ready to fight again, intent on making his
presence felt. I really never knew what she
could see in him. He pulled out a picture
of a house and said 'this is where we're going
when we're done.' They'd be traveling for eight
months. 'Good for them' I thought to myself,
'nothing can keep them here.' We shook
hands, they smiled, and we were off;
two different directions, but
off nonetheless.

112. RUNNING THROUGH FRANCE IN THE RAIN

RUNNING THROUGH FRANCE IN THE RAIN
It was only a moment but it seemed like a year:
my hands in your pouch, your boots clicking the bricks.
The tiny raindrops were circling through the air,
dripping from the brim of your hat as we ran.
It was like love in a shower, yet it was, really,
only rain : rain in the moonlight, rain in the fog,
rain in the sun of early early morning.
-
I remember streetlamps and the trolley;
the train which seemed never to stop.
You said you needed to stop, coffee, a
restroom, a break. I said I could
'run like this forever'.
-
Something changed.
Life took on new meaning.
Running through France in the rain.

111. ALL THIS AND NOTHING MORE

ALL THIS AND NOTHING MORE
(I put to you my human son the
fact that you have nothing to fear.
These tracks are endless and they
do go on...and on, one after another -
until all points meet, and you are gone.
-
Yet, fear not. The ends sometimes
do justify the means, and other times
the means are themselves the ends.)

110. MY SKELETON HOUSE

MY SKELETON HOUSE
Just what was it that came forth from something else?
A wayward form of 'otherness', a tinkling of
the bones just before they were roused to
life? I've noticed that none of this is
written down, anywhere - and anywhere
it is is pure conjecture.
-
'We are air' the rudimentary doctor was
saying. 'We are water and grit, we are
rivals of God and angels to boot'; some other
guy was mouthing his own lyrics in like fashion.
I skipped out before I could skip a beat.
If I was anything, I was getting bored.
-
Just outside, overhead, there was a tramway which
took people to the airport or cadavers to the morgue;
I actually do forget which. Now listen, none of it
really mattered. I simply felt all this was portrayed
for our own amusement. What difference would it
make if I was flame and you were fire; or I was
glass and you were sand? Not a minute's worth, right?
-
This can all go on forever. We each differ.
We are what we say we are. You drive
cars, maybe, while I take trains.
My skeleton house, I've noticed, actually
does have two doors. One, for entry,
another, for exit. Quite different,
and both clearly marked.

109. THE BURMESE PUPPET THEATER

THE BURMESE PUPPET THEATER
The one with the fascinating fingers kept me
comfortable in an old tophat and a reclining
chair while 'Cabaret' played on the large-sized screen.
I felt like a royal flush on an archbishop's broad
and gilded throne. That didn't last for long.
-
In another instant I was capsized and adrift
on a nasty and broiling sea - wine-dark, just
like Homer said, I think it was, sparking great
debates amidst scholars for years to come - and
I knew for sure there'd be no rest for a while
and that nothing like this had happened before.

-
I took out a pen with which to write things down,
and realized I had nothing on which to write.
The paper was all wet and soggy, and tore away
at the tip of the pen - no matter how light the touch.

-
I had capsized one too many times;
riding the sea foam to nowhere, I was
no longer sure of the memory OR the map
I'd been keeping in my head. Had I done this
all before, or was it just a creepy feeling of a
scary deja vu? I had no friends to talk with and
nothing left to do. I tried to scamper down the ropes,
but realized, as well, that they'd been removed
a long time ago. Marionette? Puppet?

-
Just what was I, and
who was pulling the strings?

108. AWAKE AT DAWN

AWAKE AT DAWN
Purposefully watering his lawn -
charging a battery at the side of his house,
re-painting a stairway at the base of the alley,
re-snapping a trap set out for the mouse.
It's like that in Wonderland - this little man,
clad in blue, jodphurs it seems, and a riding hat
too, walking home from Eddie Doyle's at three after two.
It was like a dream; one of those situations where
you've entered something - a room or a place - from
which you can't get out and it's constantly growing
smaller around you. Some force-field holds you in,
and each time you near the exit to force yourself out
the G-forces distort your face, toss you about.
One minute you're miserable over it,
the next you're glad as well.
Can't get in, can't get out.
A simple situation,
much like Hell.

107. SOME KIND OF APRIL / SOME KIND OF MAY

SOME KIND OF APRIL,

SOME KIND OF MAY:

It was some kind of April, some kind of May,
and the flowers were growing on the lawn
and the trees had already brought forth
the leaves of Summer as the boys in the

charthouse band had taken the stage in

the little Victorian Park bullshit band shell the

town had erected for parties and parades,
and two guys I watched came out with a barrel

and fireworks and the brass band playing

Sousa marches was tuning up from what
sounded like Hell itself while the crippled mayor
and his pablum steeds spouted bromides and platitudes

blarney and greed - a good speech it is said

has them all mixed in one - but no one was listening
as some human cannonball was brought out in E-flat
and stuffed into the tube and they lit the fuse as a
loud crash ensued - the guy went flying while all in

flames and landed thirty yards away dead like a

brick and fired up too and they tried to revive him

but all the rescue guys were either drunk or in the

band - the ribbons came down and the last

I'd heard it was some Memorial Day for the

record-books : three dead fourteen burned

and one retarded kid suddenly brought back

to full and clear and precisely-perfect mental

health - which I guess wasn't saying

much for anyone else.

106. YOUR ROCK/YOUR ROLL

YOUR ROCK/YOUR ROLL
(to a culture gone bad in the teeth)
I could justify your jocularity with the rhythm of
some home-free time : like a wayward John Lennon,
or any one of those tortured rock and roll characters
who seem never to shut up. They really are all the same.
Bragging of their butchered balls, their merciful hearts,
and their laggard lunge to fame and fortune. Such shit,
all the time and everywhere. I can't wait for the repudiation
(which always comes). Like your David Bowie in a young man's
drag - searching the country for a bandmate to blow, trading in
old coins found under the floor, wading chest-deep through
girls and fans and screamers and gents. Dude, take that!
-
They genuflect along the river at night; gobs of babes in
chunky dresses dancing witch-dances to the Goddess of Night.
The Man In the Moon comes down for a fight, or to take
part, or just to stand by and then wane. Cheap astronomy
and all the rest put a good man's fortitude to the final test.
Before it all happens again give me a knife to jab at
your throat. I'm so sick of your vomit.

105. ISABELLE BAUMFREE

ISABELLA BAUMFREE

(Sojourner Truth)
The sidewalks were overflowing with people -
the kind of people poverty sends your way.
Tenement buskers, rakish little Irish kids
with swagger, runaway slaves and freed ones too,
who essentially lived where they wanted,
anywhere they chose, and did what they wanted too.
And then there was me. My name was changed -
to Sojourner Truth - by me.
It used to be Isabella Baumfree.
I chose to be.
I chose it all.
'The Spirit calls me, and I must go.'

104. MATADOR

MATADOR

I haven't yet met the Matador, nor the bull.

Both of them were pointed out to me, quickly,

behind the gated pen - one quite far off from

the other. They really should have 'nothing to do

with each other', I was told, 'until their very first

meeting in the ring'. Ole to that, I suppose.

-

I know it's been much like that with my own

life too. Waiting in the anterooms of work and

effort, just until something vibrant draws me out.

Where I then am the bloodied? Or the bloodier?

I don't really often know. And even if it makes a

difference, it would seem the same ratty crowd

starts its inane chanting. Either way, I'm lost.

-

I was watching a botanist go on about roses and orchids.

Every other word out of his mouth was 'splendor' or

'beauty', 'display' or 'charm'. He touched each blossom,

as a visual example, in his very precise way. I wished

I could have been him, just for a moment or two.

Charm, grace, or beauty. It all would work for me.

103. BROKE BEFORE I STARTED

BROKE BEFORE I STARTED
'I was there yesterday when they were
handing out pennies and sending out
leeches to cure the infirm. Yes, yes, I
really was. The black squirrel I saw was
hanging upside down on the big tree-trunk,
watching the scene from ten feet up. People
passed, thinking of course nothing of it :
one can't react to what one doesn't see.'
The man speaking had his head in a
device which was supposed to amplify his
expounded thoughts. All it did for me, it seemed,
was to garble his already intensely stupid words.
A motorcar passed on the left - the guy inside was
wearing a guardsman's hat and a short haircut,
the kind you see in military magazines. Nothing
made much sense. Girls passed, tall and big.
Nothing I'd work on, but girls nonetheless.
If I had a dime for every thought that led
me astray, I mused to myself, I'd be,
most certainly, broke before I started.

102. THE SWASTIKA WITH BRUISES

THE SWASTIKA WITH BRUISES
It wasn't as if anything new had transpired.
We'd already built the big cities and bombed them down
to smithereens - smoldering hulks of 'things that once were'.
The gendarmes and the frilly guys with lace and flowers
kept coming around seeking alms. Some weird
power-salute took place among men who were boys.
The female side of things - like a painting turned
the wrong way hanging on the wall - just kept
trying to come through.
From the Warsaw Ghetto through Stalag 17,
everywhere, they all were singing the same theme :
'tomorrow belongs to us'. Yes, well maybe.
Berlin was a time like Weimar was
an era. All those crazy doctor-types,
prancing around barefoot, in
army hats and tutus.

101. THE VILLAGE OF CLUES

THE VILLAGE OF CLUES
The voice was distant yet defined.
'I am Adam in Eden, supremely bored,' it said.
The distended words held themselves forward as a
plea to an executioner all set with the cleaver's edge.
'Help me please. Remove me from this torrid place.'
-
No bondage could be worse. He had spoken;
no situation more removed from joy and happiness.
The love of Paradise was the love of ease, which could
not be continued endlessly, forever. 'I remain Adam in
Eden, superbly bored, who takes his leave now to set forth
into the world I do not know, alone. Eve has kept the
serpent for replacement.' So said, he moved forth.
-
Like wind upon the water, form upon the void, the entire
sensate world was stretched before him. 'You must take
from this all that you can use,' a new voice said, 'for I
have given it here to you, alone. You, named Adam, have
been banished by request from what you deemed too much
a Paradise. Your hand now shall know the work of toil and all
of its constructions.' Such was the frame when vision entered.
-
Adam could see; unknown to him, the newer Paradise
had opened. He recreated Eve, in his image.
It was he now who moved upon the stillness.
His outstretched arm built form and time and space.
He had arrived.
-
'Eve, we will work. We will build on land these things
we need, for shelter, warmth, water and food. I shall
amend the world to my own sight, changing and replacing
the old with meanings fresh and new. We shall build
a land from which to wonder; we shall build a land
on which to wander.' She nodded an assent as they
then moved along the way.
-
Reminders riddled their sleeps.
Lines of reasoned draft and formulas unknown
bedeviled their new-formed brains. Angles and
declensions haunted them. They spoke a newer tongue,
and time passed. They found a need for grouping thoughts
and acts. Field and hollow, plain and valley filled
with them and theirs. Every act they did led them to
somewhere else - after the first broad move, with
their clues amassed and their worlds transformed,
they sought to harness place and power.
Concepts grew from this.
-
'Man gave names to all the animals.'
That merely scratches the surface,
that merely suggests the whole...

100. THE RELUCTANT EXHIBITIONIST

THE RELUCTANT EXHIBITIONIST
They told me to come see -
some guy with no legs was
running in place. Now that was
a sight for sore eyes. I looked over
my shoulder, and what did I see?
The newsman from the Daily Horn,
with his photographer, pushing to the
front of the line. 'We want to take a picture',
he said. 'What did you have in mind?',
I said back. 'Why nothing of the kind!'
he sternly spoke, 'we really just wish to
ed-u-cate the folk!' That's just the way
he said it too.
-
There's no sorrow like yesterday's sorrow,
even if it's tomorrow. I coughed up two dollars
and got a picture of the scene; nothing worth
nothing really, but I just had to have it.

99. A HOLIDAY OF TWO MEANS

A HOLIDAY OF TWO MEANS
I am taking a holiday until tomorrow, because I don't
know what else to do. Having run out of words (me!) and
intentions, I seek to step back, inhabit the distance, and
take the moment I've waited for. My lethal fragment
of effort and attempt is over. I will sit at the counter
forever, just to watch what I am watching.
-
The scribe is a nasty nurse.
He takes his paper and pen with him,
through all the ages. We have seen him
in every guise : Pound and Rilke, Dante and
Chaucer, Sartre and Gide. Whatever your combination,
it has already happened. You should arise early to
know so much. Mankind's workings are never lost.
-
There is, in the shadows, a dark kind of optimism
to all that we do. Post-pessimism, pre-Paradise;
perhaps it's all the same in the end.
To laugh, one must be willing to cry.
To die, one must first have lived.
-
'Bread baked on its own bottom is best' -
the old monk in the garrett told me that.

98. EVEN THE ORANGE WALL-FLOWERS HAVE WITHERED

EVEN THE ORANGE WALL-FLOWERS HAVE WITHERED
('the modern world is broken')

-
It is all the rage of serpents and snakes:
taking things out one by one, dismantling
them and parting them out for a penny or less.
Bankers going bankrupt, I'd bet, have more fun.
This is not to diminish the intention, for it may
have started out good. Now however, they bury
their lies with their product. 'By their fruits you
shall know them.' The last time I saw that written,
it was in ink, old and blurry, on a prisoner's back.
-
I haven't really got the time to instruct you all on
the ways of the world. Suffice it to say, maybe, the
last shall be first and all that 'turnabout is fair play'
rabble-rousing crap. Some guy was just telling me
yesterday that 'if Jesus was alive today, he'd be way
into computer repair.' What a stupid thing to say.
I would have thought, instead, he'd be a custom
bookbinder, or an artisan vintner of very fine wines.
-
Yet, who am I to know, or anyone else.
What difference does conjecture make?
At 10 in the morning, I've noticed, on the
outside wall, they line some prisoners up
and have them 'gently' shot. It's the new way
of doing things - no shots to the head or heart,
just more minor shots to the legs and arms.
'Everyone eventually dies' the warden said,
'this just makes it easier for those who remain.'

97. MADDIE

MADDIE
Someone named Maddie is ruining my life -
saying things about me, taking out my garbage,
replacing objects I may have lost, moving things
around to where I can no longer find them,
replacing treasured objects with junk, eating from
my plates, and uncovering things I've hidden.
-
I do not know who this individual is, God or Goddess,
chump or slob, nasty fool or someone thinking
they're helping, but I want it stopped. This thing
called Maddie is but an interference, where I
need it not. Leaving traces after itself, I see it
smokes, loses hair, had muddy feet, and is
partial to juices and sweets. Maddie separates
things from where they were last seen.
-
A bother and a nuisance I would call it.
Whatever it is, ruling and relegating,
marking my calendar, waiting for Easter,
trimming buds off flowers, I just wish it
cease this activity. I am, after all, old
enough to look after myself.
-
Someone named Maddie is ruling my life.

96. OF THE LATE CRO-MAGNON MAN

OF THE LATE CRO-MAGNON MAN
[Oh Gosh] HE is whistling Dixie.
Just yesterday I saw him drooling at
the soda-counter, flashing diamond-studded
earrings at the fast and willing crowd.
He turned and said to me : 'the waitress is serving

time' : and then he asked if I got his joke.

At that precise moment, his stomach rumbled,

his intestines swelled. He seemed very proud

of himself. 'I really have come far,' he smirked,

'a wife, two kids, and a brand new car.

The only thing I need to remember is to

brush these new teeth and use the bathroom

daily. All the rest comes easy.'
-
I wondered how much of that was true,
or if he was just making up rhymes
to charm his new found human crew.

95. THE WHOLE OX

THE WHOLE OX

The Chinese hills are rounded, with rocks obscuring cliffs,

where it would seem no one would dare go - except perhaps

the thin eccentric, painting with brush the delicate scene.

-

He sits, removed and solitary. To meditate upon the sky,

or stare down varied vistas, would seem to be his wisdom.

An occasional pithy comment utters forth.

-

'We are like the ever-present bumble-bee.

Our flight is in the air, while, on our

grounded feet, sweet nectar sticks us here.'

94. VACATIONING IN (OLD) UNION SQUARE

VACATIONING IN (OLD) UNION SQUARE
We are huddled in a doorway near a shop called
'Abe's Electric'. There isn't much here other than
debris. The old reviewing stand in Union Square Park
is deserted now, the papers and brown bags blowing around
seem the only crowd. The bend in the road right here seems
awesome to me. No one is speaking. All is quiet and dull.
-
Once there were labor crowds here cheering - in the old
'organizing' days of the movement. Rallies galore.
Once the cluttered noise of speeches and support ran
through the crowds like the electric lines overhead, pushing
forth the yellow arc lights by which we tried to read. The
voices were strange and singular, with bullhorns or cupped hands
amplified - and then only much later the powered megaphones
from atop ancient cars. It was a funny world back then.
-
So many so sure of their cause.
So often so ready to stand for so much.
Has the world changed greatly, or us?
-
It seems now that nothing but a vegetable mart grows here.
People mill about, huddled and rash, for squash or wine or
custom-made jams. The small farms from upstate have their very
own pies, fruits and meat. Has our ideology gone crazy?
Shunted aside from their DDT and pesticide scares, the tenuous
connection these people make between Freedom and its 'choice'
of foods is strange to me. What have we become? And how have
we reached the milestone of choosing to act, over food
and its styles or grapes and their taste? Dorothy Day no
longer walks among this crowd - to my knowledge she has
long been gone. Perhaps some other land has called her there,
wherein she bravely calls out for the hungry and their needs....
-
'I will feed you, give you warmth, and offer you a better
shelter than you will find huddled here, in Union Square.'

93. CYCLORAMA

CYCLORAMA
I do not want to get off this thing:
just want to go 'round and 'round in
spherical music into and out of some
beginning to an ending unknown.
Some say their lives are simple.
So be it. Mine's not.
-
I perplex the waters and the land.
All around me, atoms are bursting with
desire, inquiry, reason or understanding.
My search for knowledge never ends.
Nothing brings nothing to nothing.
Such is the sum of this smashing.
-
You do, perhaps, hear the sounds?
Atoms crash and screech like any other
object you may know - gnashing of teeth
as a metaphor, or the baying of wolves.
We humanize so many other things -
-
Why not wonder and doubt?
Why not boredom and awe?
-
Nothing brings nothing to nothing...

92. NEIGHBORING ARMIES

NEIGHBORING ARMIES
They went for the jugular
like crazed dogs off a leash.
It was said they had nothing to lose.

The grand medical men, the learned

scholars, the doctors of law, all took

an interest in this. 'War is a lethal time'

they said, 'it brings out behaviors in men

not seen before.' Animals gnawing on bone

would be more like it, thought I to myself.

-

As usual, I was standing on the sidelines watching.

Maybe just waiting for something to happen.

Two guys staggered by - one with his hand blown

off at the wrist, the other holding his guts.

'Just a mortar wound, nothing more. We'll be

back at it all soon.' I waved them goodbye

and said 'so long' to their spirits and souls too.

-

There was no answer.

They had been gone long ago.

91. RARITAN

RARITAN
Sunrise over the river;
little fingers of light
passing a torch to another day.

90. MAKE MINE RICH MOMENTS

MAKE MINE RICH MOMENTS
Abracadabra and all the rest.
I haven't been doing much lately;
seem to have lost my touch. The gloved hand,
in leather, smacks my face but once or twice -
and then I'm startled back to form. Urging forward
furiously again - streaming notes from a car-keys-fob
as a wailing siren declaims intent. Everything
is hazy - the crowd, the mob, the dungaree factions
of farmers and knaves, all those fools who listen.
-
Just like that, some sun bursts over the horizon.
Crisp cold morning where the cuckoo once sang.
Ice is on bare branches and someone's sliding car
drives all shiny by. The lazy garbage truck by the
circle tries one more time to make that turn.
-
It's all over before it's started.
Another wild day sneers.
(Now where am I gonn'a go after this?).

89. MY DILATION IN THE TIME-WARNER BUILDING

MY DILATION IN THE TIME-WARNER BUILDING
And then the cantilevered conversation that went nowhere
had brought me home to risk : again without a show,
a hammer OR a claw. I glanced upwards once, at
the mirrors lining the top moldings, and saw the
multi-colored stars of someone's idea of decoration.
Little kids were looking up with their mothers.
A sculpted fat-lady in bronze stood naked
on a pedestal of sandstone. A few
people were taking pictures.

88. THE SAD FISHERMAN

THE SAD FISHERMAN
Having made catch, the fisherman went home.
He'd lived by the lake for years : twelve as a young married,
and then - after his wife died young - another twelve as
a crotchety recluse involved with his work. There weren't many
who spoke with him, nor of him. Like a once-a-year
flower, blooming suddenly at night, he was watched
if not revered only for what he might do. Ever-sentinel,
people kept watching. They saw him chop wood in the
relentless cold; they'd watch him wilt at lakeside
in the brutal Summer heat. One day - apparently when
no one watched - he went to the tool shed, where he
kept some possessions, sat down in a chair,
and blew his brains out. Later, when they
found him, no one knew what to say.
There was a note found too, pinned
to his chest, stating:
'Whatever it is this may signify to
you all, to me it's merely one further
sign of my sad resignation
for the sorry state of
my overdue life.'

87. TREMOLO

TREMOLO
It was for the depth that the deep
was brought to bear : 'what did he
say, and how'd he say it?'
The sort of question only a detective asks.
They had manners like pygmies would,
if they had any - living amidst grime, in
a three story walk-up with no hot water.
Fruit flies on the table top and (for all I knew)
tse-tse flies in the sink. There were building
blocks strewn on the floor where one of the kids
had left them. Someone's old bathroom towel,
still ringing wet, was draped over the back of the
wooden chair, already changing the wood to white.
I wondered if they knew it went away after a while.

86. WASHDAY EVENING IN THE WORKADAY WORLD

WASHDAY EVENING IN
THE WORKADAY WORLD
Most of what they've hung out to dry
has dried very long ago. As shadows are an
absence of light, so too are these fragments of time:
left and bereft, dogged and stiff, clean yet bedraggled
in their own washed-out way. The sunlight above
us will linger no longer. Whatever it's done has
already been done. The neighborhood's awash
in wash this early evening day. A decent-enough
heat, with warming sunlight, made it pleasant
while it stayed. But now this workaday day's
work is done. Bring the wash in! There's
no longer any sun!

85. LIFE NONETHELESS

LIFE NONETHELESS
On this first measured evening of
an oncoming Winter, with the full moon
hung low in the sky, the leaves have all fallen
and the trees are all barren and there is
nothing to see but broad sky - a barren greyness,
but one worth every penny.
-
Seasons, like words, are measured out one by one.
We take what we see - what we are given - and we add,
ourselves, the coloration and tenor we wish.
Bare, barren, denuded trees still whisk in the
winds as they pass through the branches.
That skeletal bareness belies the barren - no matter
that everything is still filled with life :
dormant, slow to move, lazy even, but life nonetheless.
-
What charmers these little things are...
over there, the squirrel with one eye.
At the farther corner, that old green statue
in the square, John Witherspoon himself, in fact;
brazen and strong, high atop his concrete pedestal.
It apparently little matters to him now the where
and when of this time and this place.
At some point everything comes together as one.
Beyond time, and beyond memory too.
(Life nonetheless, it's been said).

84. WRITING AS A PLACE TO LIVE

WRITING IS A PLACE TO LIVE
The places I've loved no longer exist.
All that I dreamed of is gone.
-
The most decided of moments has affected
all things - our pictures have changed with
that moment. The ruined cities of America:
Calumet City, when it was a mob town with
very public vice or that small place in Cleveland,
with its whisky and ice.
-
Certain places were always a clue - when we
understood the name of our quarry : the
grand ballrooms full of nakedness and a band.
Chicago, Baltimore and New York. Packed up
places with plenty of power.
-
The places I've loved no longer exist,
and all that I dreamed of is gone.
-
Those cantilevered bridges, arching faint pose,
lightly, over those darkened rivers. That winsome
sound - of the train leaving town. The smell of
the coal-house and the tractors - somehow re-seeding
the surface of the land. Everything, all at once,
a'jumble and crazy and perverse and wild.
Now, all this is over.
The world has gone mild.
-
...the places I've loved are all gone :
and all that I dreamed of no longer exists...

*for Jack Gilbert, at 80

83. WOOD

WOOD
I wish that I could build with wood
what my heart and mind can see.
Thrust from the spirit and the ground,
a wonderful kingdom it would be;
at one and the same of Earth and of Heaven.
-

I wish that I could construct with my feelings
the durable fit of the world's own glove.
Tight with fingers and snug,
made comfortable by charm and illusion,
I would wear it as a golden cloth or a
richness of fabric never before seen or imagined.
Then, perhaps, we would all be our own perfection.
-
Sunlight. Brilliance. Unwavering affection.
A fluorescent love brought to the very battlements
of fear - then the world would be transformed.
Light, and light alone, would be life's meaning.

82. CARMA CARMALITA AND PURE CHANCE

CARMA CARMELITA AND PURE CHANCE
1. No one ever came forth admitting to the crime.
Bertolt Brecht said this in rhyme (couplets):
['Poets, painters, and musicians
seeking grub and good positions
-
Noble souls who now assure us
they were no friends of the Fuhrer's']
...
How purely cute and quaint I say -
it even works out for today.
2. Speaking for myself, I have this to say
(once more harking to today).
'Do not be fooled oh limerick lady
by the force of the newly captured coming in.
They are all the same, whether colored white or tan.
Standing on the White House steps,
they smile until demands are met :
you are nothing and have come with nothing
and will keep nothing less. All auguries point to
discontent; pray to God you pay the rent.'
3. There once was a little bluebird, who
landed on the roof. Never one to smile back,
the owner took another tack.
After two seasons at risk, the
bluebird was sanctioned no longer.
What else do you need? More proof?

81. THE TEN O'CLOCK SCHOLAR

THE TEN O'CLOCK SCHOLAR
Some new guy was holding a stick -
Bongo Billy or something he said -
crawling with tendentious efforts towards
a likeness of God. Departured enfrazzlement
with all Nature on board.
'It's not in the cards for us to think'.
A Reverend Ike lookalike just down from
Harlem's own shed was speaking from a
platform set up to rouse the dead.
'We are the lost tribes of Israel, the children of
Moses himself. Why should we not stand up
in our own defense?' The crowd cheered wildly.
Lustfully. With complete abandon. I wasn't sure
what had occurred, but they were all screaming
in tandem. 'Had I a dime for every man's false dollar,
I'd be one tenth the richer' - the ten o'clock scholar.

80. TRIPLETS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

TRIPLETS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

New Paintings on a very old wall;

not bad, not bad at all.

-

I've somehow a notion to call the police.

Nothing forward's been done; it was all kept discreet.

-

Some say the world will end in fire.

I say it won't. It'll just wallow in mire.

79. A DREAM IN A DREAM

A DREAM IN A DREAM
I wanted to make something with my hands...
no sex joke intended, but there you were.
It was like a drive in the country, in an old MG,
top down, exhaust howling. The three barns we passed
each had huge painted signs on their sides :
'Collier's Home-Made Elixir', 'Red Man Chew',
and - lastly - 'Harmon's Antiques Emporium'.
Sure was country-time to me.
Then, just like that, I awoke and realized
where I was - Jamaican Rum, malted-milk,
and a screeching bevy of kids on TV.
And then I REALLY awoke, and realized...
that too was a dream (in a dream).

78. DINING AT THE METROPOL

DINING AT THE METROPOLE
Oh raft of shiners, renegade factors,
how sincerely do you pout. While you sang
'The Swan' at Tuckman's Oasis, half the world
was burning away. So little did you notice, or care,
that one aperitif after another was downed for lack
of love to share. Heavens, how little so much matters!
-
'We must keep up our manners!'
That was a rallying cry as so many ships
went down. So the orchestras continued to play
as waiters brought trays and hors d'oeuvres, all
fresh for the choosing. 'There is really nothing
happening here to worry about.' So you idled in
the hallways, commenting on the carpets and the taste.
-
Everything was proper, as if placed discreetly,
perfectly, on some biology-lab table set to metastasize
the good and equalize the bad. Life as one sweet reason.
Life as one sweet season.
-
Let us dine again at The Metropole.

77. THE BISHOP'S SOLE MATTER

THE BISHOP'S SOLE MATTER

A jury's idea of waiting for something to convince
never made any sense to me. It's either
clear from the start or it's not.
All the rest is idle gossip.
Consider the lilies of the field -
they neither toil nor sleep.
They take out no one's trash and neither
do they rob nor pillage.
A washbasin filled with water would know that.
Early each morning, the guy at the piano
delivers my newspaper. He sneaks up on the
walkway, throws it down, and runs back to his
eighty-eight keys.
Why?, you would wonder, no?
-
I always wanted to read Elizabeth Bishop aloud.
The way James Merrill once did : with dramatic
flair - in 'Arrival at Santos' there's a part
where the deck-boy catches the old woman's skirt
with the boat hook, by accident.
'Please boy, do be more careful with that
boat hook! Watch out! Oh! It has caught
Miss Breen's skirt!'
-
It's really nothing but a bunch of stupid words.
('Life and the memory of it cramped, dim,
on a piece of Bristol board.')

76. CLEVER TOO FAR BY HALF

CLEVER TOO FAR BY HALF
(Abstract #2)
Maybe the cleaver was left in the shed.
It dangled there, from a leather strap, as if it
were meant to be there forever. So why wreck the
equation (1clvr + strp over nail X plc = view)?
Had you not asked, I wouldn't have known.
That Chevrolet you'd mentioned was still down at the pier -
parked at an angle, as if left in a hurry. She was running
when I last saw her - the girl, who'd left it there. Prada?
Manolo Blanik? I won't know the difference. She looked OK.
Now I hear - as the detective tells the story - she was on the lam
from fleecing her attorneys of thousands of billable hours.
THAT'S a no-no for sure. They are, after all, supposed to be
on your side, so why would you cross them?
-
Later on, after the story had run its course, I saw her
photo in the paper. She still looked good, though not great.
Prison khakis seem to never look nice : grey, blue, pink, whatever.
Something had been done, also, with her hair.

She no longer looked ready for adventure -

in fact she now looked rather tired and bedraggled.
I was sure they'd sedated her, even if just for the picture.
-
'What else was new?' I figured.
I could do the math in my head.

75. THIS MIRACULOUS DOCTOR WAS A MEDICINE MAN

THIS MIRACULOUS DOCTOR

WAS A MEDICINE MAN
Lest we sulk.
It breaks away.
The femur connected to something
joins that something to something else.
They work together.
We mobilize. We generate.
We move to the point through the friction
of the joint. As cows in a meadow, we swarm.
-
The guy in the old churchyard was lost
in an image of oldest Newark;
itself already gone 10 times over.
I could see it in his eyes as he talked to me.
-
There really wasn't anything left at all -
a mountain-pile of smashed red bricks
surrounded by temporary fencing.

74. MAJESTIC SKIES ARE LIBERAL THINGS

MAJESTIC SKIES ARE LIBERAL THINGS
(Halloween/Election Day)
The endless pageant rolls on - we seem tired,
forlorn, bereft of interest - yet the children still
parade. About their smothered faces,
clown make-up, starbursts painted,
temporary tattoos. Their high-pitched
voices, sing-song, labor to tell a tale.
How the dragon slew the night.
-
It must be teachers, grabbing hands and
shouting girlish instructions : 'Don't push!
Remain in place! Be quiet!'
How come some things never change?
The glimmer of interest and energy
will soon be drained from these kids.
'Do this; don't do that!'
How soon those
flowers wilt.
-
Majestic skies are liberal things;
the broadness of appeal, the openness of
any invitation. 'Come celebrate with us!
This is life we must endure! Be happy!
We are sure of everything!' Only time
can close the great wide-open.
How sadly the children
turn in upon
themselves.

73. THE ERROR OF ONE'S WAYS

THE ERROR OF ONE'S WAYS
I erased every mark of her from all my books -
not a smudge not a smidgen to be. There would be
instead clear blue skies, wide-open spaces,
and an end to all that cramped and crabbed
bad living done before. I swore this to myself
(you must believe) over and over again.
It wasn't just that living like that had no end,
but more that the lack of presence, after a while,
just wore me down. Beleaguered, tired, fitful and dark;
I'd grown into some monster I never wished to be.
If there was ever a sanctimonious moment, this would be it:
admitting to oneself the error of one's ways.
-
So no one wishes, any longer, to speak with me.
So no one communicates a word. I hear the
stupid 3rd Street choir singing from the roof
of a parking garage somewhere in downtown
Morristown, and I have to wonder why. Their
insidious, bastardized music - a really bad
form of religious rap - seeps through my brain like
zombie blood at an outdoor picnic. I'm vain enough,
I guess, to admit I'd wish to see them all dead -
if I had the chance to choose it.
-
No matter the age, everyone remains stupid as they grow.

72. SURVIVING

SURVIVING
What sideways step effaces doom?
This small kitten hidden in the alcove
of an arm - a mutant solace in a tray of kind
warmth. It wasn't always this way, mind you.
Living on....(take your pick, I say)....
the razor's edge, thin ice, a wing and a prayer.
It takes but a moment to disengage the potential :
whatever it can be, alas, will never be.

71. LEIPZIG TO LEYDEN

LEIPZIG TO LEYDEN

(rotten, doddering)
An amiable dialogue to be sure:
something like catching the oasis on the fly,
muttering obscenities into the mirror to be
sure someone hears them, or writing profuse
regrets for invitations which never arrived.
Amidst all this roddering noise, I managed to
both stay alert and understand every word I heard.
It became like a nightmare should be : all perverse
imagery and damning intent. I looked down from the
high clouds I was flying amidst - countries beneath me
with borders only resembling fences and bodies of blue
water as rigidly round as an ocean of sarcasm would be.
Germany into Poland into Russia and back: a real trip,
a real magnificent trip, taken on with nerves of steel
and a smile.