867. ONE LAST MOON

ONE LAST MOON
Like a head in the sky hanging
and staying in place, or trying in
a solid desperation to do so, this
roundness remains suspended,
sensing a farce instead. Impassively
immobilized in the thick liquid of a
white, morning sky, a celestial blue sea,
dawn's quiet wakefulness, Nature's cure
sounding. We stand, remiss for sure, only
if, by a tactless avoidance, we miss
what overhead occurs.

866. WILLY LO MAN

WILLY LO MAN
Seeing Death of a Salesman as a
comedy to be withstood, it seems
to serve little purpose either to

applaud or hiss and boo. One or

the other gets you there - same
key, is it, for different doors (darn
now, I really forget), or same door,
different keys? No matter; the simple

drama increases itself at will.

865. ART LANSING

ART LANSING
I was there a while, and then I left
and another while, by Detroit, I ran
into Nathan. Nothing decisive either
way, just more of the same. The February
storms kept brewing - out over one lake
and back in on another. They took it all in
stride and no one thought twice. The dark,
red old bricks of the ancient brewery
building - all burned now - with its
blackened timbers still standing and
those bricks re-baked a darker red
towards black, stayed put. Trying to
find the NuLand Art Museum, I
at first thought that may have been
it - but it wasn't - though it
could have been; great
conceptual show, all
about burned-out
offerings and new
things to the
old Gods.

864. A THEORY OF ART DESIGNED TO UPHOLD THE VALUE OF SERENITY

A THEORY OF ART DESIGNED
TO UPHOLD THE VALUE OF
SERENITY
The ships are sailing where nothing
else runs...antediluvian smokestacks
and pennants with flames. They've
manned all the catwalks and bridges
with clumps of people now dedicated
to the onset of Love and Freedom.
-
Apparently - fleeting and gull-like
though this may be - I am alone in
sensing that nothing exists. Sensations
and manifestations, my flags and all
the buntings, have been scattered and
blown about. Distant, farther fields
await, someplace, where matter - like
the girl nearby, talking fast, to a friend -
takes yet another form.
-
This is both speed and stillness together -
everyone clapping in a soundless noise.
They've registered the floral path up along
the roadway to the alley. Those who
come first can pass. All others must
bow and genuflect or curtsy, as if
it was another place and time.
-
I sense nothing now left but a
rambunctious format where the
cut-outs used to be : and, oh, all
you empty-headed rascals, the
trimming and the cutting I can do
without. 'Where there are no bones,
anyone can serve a goose.' *

------

*T. S. Eliot (last sentence, marked)

863. A MANIFEST DESTINY

A MANIFEST DESTINY
This sky rolls over forever, stretching out
and crossing every great divide. There's not
a match for this : steeple, carport, ranch house
shed. Every acre for a fool, and an America
made grand again. Lockstep the darlings.
-
Thinking about it now - how the moment
is experienced, I really see nothing at all. I
need to say, first: 'how is it that I know?'
And every such useless question to the fore
flies high. My pestilential mind starts wandering.
-
And that's how things begin : 'Images,
connections, observations and conclusions.
The immediate feeling where Knowledge begins
is, I think, the first moment of a true observation.'
-
I regale you with scenes of a brook - an
avid distance - running quietly under a little
stone bridge, and the people, above, walking.
The moment slowly passes. Red plaid,
dark denim, flannel, and a shawl...

862. VOCATIONAL YARMULKE

VOCATIONAL YARMULKE
I am hanging alms over the precipice - ethereal
items of disposed-end dreams and dreamings
of you. I don't know why. The radio plays some
classical tune - a nasty romp of both viola
and oboe, or another concoction of sound.
In the small metal guardhouse, the black
watchman sits staring, a white plastic
coffee-cup in his hand. The contrast is
bleak, as he folds the contours of
his now-Sunday paper.
-
On the edge of my peripheral vision,
I note, a few families are passing by -
guidebooks and schedules in hand, they
avidly grasp their trade-marked pencils
to check off where they've been. The little
one is chewing gum, her bouncy skirt skipping
right along with her. Glumly, the mother and
father are trailing behind. The art museum looms.
-
A campus cop-car saunters along,
ever-watchful for the spite or the
arousal of something wrong, a thing
out of order, a synapse, perhaps,
disconnected. Wild things
grow wherever they land -
wanton, errant seeds,
all over this land.

861. GENESIS TWO

GENESIS TWO
I was reading today just how Science
always wants its proofs. That's okay,
and understandable too. I'm handed
coffee in a cup that is hot - 'don't
spill!' - That proof will do.
-
The morning light sits around like a
lion, waiting : paws neatly tucked and
eyes alert. The thick fog of a cooler
daybreak hangs along the canal waters
and Carnegie Lake, as a paint still waiting
to dry. Scientists will want their proofs,
and I'm still wondering why.
-
It was myself - I, me, damned - fusing
that light on the first morning of the
new world. I watched the jetty with
someone's intent, knowing all to be,
knowing everything still to come. It
went from the sky, and came away.
-
The scientist, still talking, says:
'If we can make the world anew,
if we find a Second Genesis, then
maybe, only then, can I believe
in the search for another world.'

860. SYMBOLISM

SYMBOLISM
(the Pathetic Fallacy)
We are ruled by only what appears; the
pathetic fallacy is all. Unbelievers strain
at nothing, and no leash holds. The symbolism
of want and figure - to wit, the Lie.
-
Indictment as such is forced upon us :
the schoolmarm saying: 'thank one of us
if you can read.' The home-schooled kid
that can read at three? Now whose thanks
should that kid be? Of course, we know,
she's not meaning 'read', she's meaning
'more; and only for me.' Once more,
the Pathetic Fallacy.
-
It's not that you read, it's what.
Can you even spell 'graffiti' my
fellow? 'Noxious writing, mold-
encroaching, destroyer of the common
weal; electronic momentary seconds of
half-distracted imagery...' There, I've defined
all that and just for you. Well, well, I don't
know. These burial mounds anyway
are all just noxious heaps.
-
Ah, but you seem to listen so well,
blond one, my morning dose of love
and honey. Such well befits the attitude
you display to my eyes. 'I am friend to
everyone, and with me stay; we shall
let our footsteps wander together.'
-
We are ruled only by what appears.
The Pathetic Fallacy, yes, is all.
('Wipe your hand across your mouth
and laugh; the worlds revolve like
ancient women gathering fuel in
vacant lots').
-
'The conscience of a blackened street
impatient to assume the world.'
This life, we must live, like a
flag unfurl'd. And I am once
more reading Wordsworth
with Eliot at four a.m. - like
tea with my coffee,
and then again.

859. COSMOASTRONATURALPHYSICS

COSMOASTRONATURALPHYSICS
[Oh I don't know and for what I don't know
I am calling you back - what I don't know
is why. The stars have a million reasons,
the depths of space, apparently, have but
one : homage and hindrance alike, a place to
hide things, a light-ridden cloth, a fabric of
globes. When the stars end, there is, still, light.]

858. WARRANT

WARRANT
It's not easy coming to terms
with old age - the wrangling divide,
choosing the theme, between tempest
and where to hang one's hat, on which
post, and - of course - for how long.
I warrant nothing but the bitches who
come forth. It's been a nice enough
ride but who knows?
-
'I sometimes hold it half a sin
to put in words the grief I feel.
For words, like nature, half reveal
and half conceal the soul within.'
-
I do not know if Tennyson
ever really laughed. I know I hope
he did. And I know that, humorously,
my own fingers do not hold as tightly
to time and death as did his.
-
When death comes greeting, I hope
it's on a coach of foaming froth,
on a coach of foaming froth
and nothing more.

857. WILLIAMSBURG

WILLIAMSBURG
This distressing animal alone does
its cart-bends beneath the evening stage.
One hundred and fifty people entered.
One fifty stayed. The intermission
never matters; it brings on other things.
-
I have no energy anymore, Alice.
When I stayed with the Jews in
Williamsburg, they tried to convince
me I had no future. They rendered
me thus obsolete, feeding me Psalm 88
with their fingers : 'I am a helpless man
abandoned among the dead, like bodies
in the grave, of whom you are mindful
no more.' Somehow this made them
satisfied. I, however, soon grew tired
of these Israelites (within this quaint
religious honeymoon I did my best -
neither soiling their daughters,
nor adding to their mess).
-
Outside this Quakerbox arrival
every new intention was written
on the wall : 'Come one to this
Gehennah, to Gan Eden come all.'

856. JUST NOW

JUST NOW
The brass band was playing
Old Man River down by the riverside -
a swatch of old guys beneath a shoreline
gazebo hung with bunting and flags. The
sort of down-home town square scene
one could find in a poster book of the
joyous American way. Marshall Flaghorn
came sauntering on - to introduce the act
between tunes. But no one is listening.
A few kids run off, a few pigeons fly in.
The slight breeze rustles in over the water,
making ripples along the surface run.
-
As I crested the hill, I noticed the soot
of some down-home squire. Nothing
very special, mind you, just another
riverfront guy - some concrete bust
of Napoleon on the rolling front lawn,
or one of those Gallic others running loose.
It's all made for a simple sauce - river
water running to mud, and the old canal
yet standing by. Those few turtles on
that sunny log? They seem to know
nothing about anything at all.

855. LOVER GIRL

LOVER GIRL
You. You. You.
I've changed so many things
now, even the mirror won't let
me look. An escarpment of mind
over matter, I suppose. What difference
does anything make? Breakfast in the
breakfast nook isn't like lunch in a
luncheonette. I carved this ring from
soap, so be careful with it. Like the
stain of a kiss, it will eventually wash
away. Eagle at night. Owl in the morning.
Tramps like us, and we like tramps.
Gone without warning.

854. SNUFF FILM

SNUFF FILM
The protagonist was already dead,
like Greek fish in a dockside webbing.
I hear that filthy sound: 'you make me
puke, barf asshole, and get that
rope from around my neck!'
The man in the manacle said to
me: 'Starlets always talk that way.
Little crumpet whores are good for
shit.' At first I was terrified...only
then I realized : at union wages,
this wasn't so bad.

853. HOVEL

HOVEL
Honey, it's all there: Give them a place
to live, the dreamers - though not for
long - any hovel will do, one being the
same as the next. The hallways, cramped
and narrow, should well contain them all.
-
I am listening to soundings on your
sluice-pipes, and then hot-dog Johnnie
comes home, sucking yellow Lifesavers
just to keep from breaking down. How
come, how come these people talk like that?
-
Yet, give them a place to live. Hollyhock
and Bleeding Heart - all those stupid and
quasi-religious garden plants make me sick -
like still another rendition of an 'April In
Paris' I disdain. Some soft-jazz over-arranged
voices done again by some bleeding-cunt
swooning. And no, that's not a garden plant,
though it should well be.
-
The cameraman is dizzy, from turning
'round and 'round, as he takes the
Kazan shot. The close-up fight is over,
now only the long-view will do.
-
'Do you have mine? Someone stole mine.
I think my landscaper stole it from my
garage, or took it from the shed, thinking
it was his maybe. Or something.
Do you have mine?'
-
As I said before: 'Give these dreamers
a hovel to dream in. Any place will do.'

852. SAILING

SAILING
Circumnavigate the globe, Magellan,
do it once for me; circumnavigate the
globe, Magellan, tell me what you see.
-
'I see the mist over the cemetery at
Grinnell - hanging low and clinging,
it cedes nothing. As thick and harmonious
as it is itself, it covers the very death
it conceals. I see the gulls and the terns
of eternity sailing ertswhile over western
seas rounding 'round this rounded globe,
perhaps, for you, then once for me.
For - other than that, why do they fly?'
-
Circumnavigate this globe, Magellan, oh
do it once for me. Circumnavigate the globe,
to tell me what you see.
-
'I see the steeple and the chapel in some
Hampshire wooded glade, the crotch of
endless mountains, and the valley in
the shade, and the child with his clover
staring straight the sunlight bright,
and the clutches of mother and father,
their tangled love within the night -
and these are each momentous things,
as embers burning bright. I have rounded
now this globe for you, but did I make it right?'
-
No, no, that was not a stipulation! 'I am drinking
cups of my own lost world. Whatever I do is stupid.
I cannot heed, I cannot genuflect (the Padre we had
brought along, Lord, I have thrown him overboard).'
No, no, let this situation heat up! 'I am frozen in a
mannered fear that keeps me steady, enamored,
here, and oh! there must be simpler things than this.'
-
Before the time I was born, if I was born at all,
was no more than an incendiary bas-relief
smoldering, and now I am ready, myself, for
a newer season of things - the matter-mark of
a modern man! I think I will circumnavigate
the globe, new Astrolabe in hand.
-
'Remember, you, how I have rounded shores
of far, illicit things - all hope and all surprises,
and the disappointments which they bring. Beware
then, 'ere you go, beware that western wind! It
can lead you where it wants to. You can never win.'
-
Ah! How like a thesis play conveniently proving its point
this all is coming to be. My words still wear the husk of
their ideas and all is not just for beauty and show. Nor
am I out to but prove a point. I illuminate instead
the experience of living today. And I am now
exploring on an inland sea.

851. LANDESMAN

LANDESMAN
I sense myself within the lines of
a Klimt; a painting both colored and
dour. Some ashen-faced woman, standing
straight, awash in luxurious color and fabric.
-
I sense myself within the lines of a Munch.
A fearsome, twisted, grotesque face arched
to a jagged yet silent scream. The inaudible
horror of the noise a painting makes.
-
I sense myself within the lines of a Picasso,
my half-witty face bearing two eyes at the
place my mouth perhaps should be; a fabric
of clown-cloth around my shoulders, the cap
of a foolish man askew upon my head.
-
What am I to do with all these things?
Images of far-away, bleeding from within
me, trying with no explanation to pin down
who I am and what I wish to be. Alas,
like a watercolor with too weak a pigment,
I am really, really nothing at all.

850. CHANGE THE CARRIER

CHANGE THE CARRIER
In Hiram's orchard, it would seem, there never
was time for a gleaning. The Magyar King was
freezing me out, and his sister was the girl
from Rheims, I only later found out. The
black car they'd arrived in had plates
from another state, and a sticker on
the rear which read - 'Alternate
Carrier Needed'.
-
When things like this lose their meaning,
the day gets confusing as Hell. Do
you remember Eliot's 'Lady of the Rocks'?
He'd named her Belladonna, 'older than
the rocks among which she sits', as
Walter Pater put it. On her dressing
room walls hung the 'withered stumps
of time', and all her 'strange synthetic
perfumes' are mentioned. That was
but the entry to the era just lived.
And now it is all gone.
-
There was a runaway dog barking hard
on Charlton Street. I saw it moving its
jaw, making such noise as if anguish
was its daily food. The withered
leaves were falling all around it.
It seemed, again, as a
changing of seasons
should seem.

849. KETTLE FISH

KETTLE FISH
Kettle fish, the mystery of life, the huge
ocean trading its oasis for the space of
the whale and the porpoise. Looking over
the horizon, landward, I realized how far
I'd gone - it was only a rumor, this
land-mass over the sky. A place for
feet and purpose, where ideas are
brought to try. I turned again to
my right to speak to the wounded
mate, still bleeding slowly from
that cut on his thigh. 'I know
I'll not make it back, my
friend, but at least you
can give it try. Give
my regards to....
Broadway,
isn't that
what they
cry?'

848. MARKERS

MARKERS
Nothing comes from nothing, it's said.
I believe that like I believe hams can fly
or pigs sprout wings. Your mania for
recognition reminds me of a movie mag
in 1948. Dark shots of a famous woman
in a kerchief, sternly glaring back into the
camera's face. All for naught and
no one cares about a thing.
When they first made the Eiffel Tower,
they made it out of glass. In a
certain French light, deep afternoon,
one was able to think it wasn't there
at all. The light ran right through it, the
obstructions were gone - nothing
there against the sky. An awesome
Gallic mystery it was.

847. DID WE MEET?

DID WE MEET?
Eyes open, hands extended, it must have
been a moment. The scene was in a glade -
bright sunlight, a few birds gone crazy
with noise. I'd just awakened from a
hundred-year sleep, and already
wished to go back. My identity was
some fluorescent bower, lilting and
easy, already moved by nothing.
You had a Springtime face, one holding
lilies and light, spangles and love.
I bowed to your glow, and left
it at that. Where did this happen?
Did we meet as a fact?

846. CANTIOKA'S SCREED

CANTIOKA'S
ANTI-IMMIGRANT
SCREED
(an overheard verbatim)
"What writers used to do, bomb-makers and
gunmen now do. They have taken the territory
once inhabited by writers : entering the inner-life
of the culture. We are, by reflection then, so
lost as to be obscured, so vile as to be obliterated.
In fire. In blast. In all those things fast. Unrecognizable?
The wind in the marsh trees has more sense and
presence now than we do. We should execute the
bureaucrats and careerists and just walk away
from it all. But yet, alas, it is really ourselves who
have, after all, allowed this to be. Taxpaying
trinketeers and moralists of malaise, claiming
to be yet free!
-
And now the fast-talking Spaniard steps in.
But these alone are not the men from Spain;
these instead are a South-American mixed
race crazed mestizo Andean Peruvian Mayan
Colombian Hispaniola horde with all their
little women and carriages and babies and
bales. There is nothing to be done, it is
already too late. They sit, these migrant,
errant laborers, and try to read the language
on the wall, locate a place, find a reference
they can keep in this unknown new land.
'Yet we are human!' they mutter, 'and so
we are', they say. All of us are, I answer,
but that so little matters here, it's just not
worth the saying. Your meaningless
countervailing brings us down."

845. WHEN

WHEN
A priest-bound empire of necrophiles
worshiping a grotesque pantheon of
animal-headed Gods. At least they've
gotten rid of the animal-headed Gods;
though they now instead teeter on the
pinpoint of entertainment faeries. And
though we generalize the interview and
the interface with 'God' (now itself the
surviving One) we know that no answers
are to be forthcoming. A strange and
silent universe we inhabit.
-
So, really, the dummies are in control.
The beautiful girls in thongs and underwear
shirts are now our Virgin Marys and we
sluice-pipe fuck them when we can. And
in the can if we can. It's our pornographic,
prophylactic world which has gone crazy,
not us! Oh, Irony abounds! Now God is a
capeador, a rumor-mongering bastard;
these days anyway.
-
It serves us right; the world's gone foul.
We stand on edge, and try to howl.
It's all we can do to remain centered,
as the Sun - it has been found -
really does revolve around us!

844. GREATER ISRAEL

GREATER ISRAEL
I watched the movie running on -
the Balfour Declaration, Herzl, Begin,
all of them schmucks alike. It was funny,
thinking of Irgun with a gun. Some
scalding coffee in an orange grove, sands
blowing onto the leafs of foreign trees.
I used my saliva to clean the screen,
not sure what I was seeing - dust on glass,
or the irreverent interference of some
outside force muscling its way back inside.

843. WHAT I WANTED TO SAY

WHAT I WANTED TO SAY
What I wanted to say - mostly - was
pain and hurt and solitude. Those top
three listers are my personal triumvirate.
I wash my hands with a rough soap,
but nothing cleans the mess : water in
the drain, as if speaking to itself, goes
round in riddle-like motion, finally ending
up gone. How like adulation all that can be.
-
God, how everything hurts. The migraine waves
of an ocean-space within, pounding and retreating
and pounding again.

842. THE DIRECTOR REACHED A HUNDRED

THE DIRECTOR
REACHED A HUNDRED
Not without a doubt did the circus-lines
cross and the old, foul man come stumbling
in. At five-fifteen I sat on a bench. Two
men like that who were hiding. All
Life is a mystery to me.
-
The bus - a town bus, local - ran by
secreting tears and noise. Windows
pinched out little faces looking this
way and that. The federation of
trees around me winced : 'these are
all such simple people', I thought,
complexly, to myself.
-
I want to ask the finance man why he exists.
'Little fellow next to me, let me comment
on your eyes. Each day another newspaper,
another set of numbers, another peek at
such unreal figures? No? Have we not yet
reached an end? For this is a sadness
I too am part of.'
-
The circus lines (this time, this tiny circus),
are taken down, and the tent falls in the
old man's eyes. Yes! Yes! The tent falls
in the old man's eyes, (which now are
both gently closed).

841. PEOPLE TALK (the meaning of things...)

PEOPLE TALK
(the meaning of things...)
Xerxes was flipping quarters at
the corner while Rashmonda watched
the garbage truck cruise by. There was
no winning for endings, nor any threat
for beginnings. And the scar on his hand
just grew larger not less. These then are
the qualities of things : what we cannot
carry goes as we enter the depths of
our own sensations. And that ! is
the meaning of things!

840. TOLLER WAS APPALLED TO DEATH

TOLLER WAS APPALLED
TO DEATH
Dorothy Thompson, Lady Astor, H. G. Wells,
Ernst Toller. Oh dear, I could go on.
A stupid, useless list of old names and
the people attached to each. Ernst Toller
hanged himself, in 1939 at the Mayflower Hotel.
His fate was to love the world and Mankind and
most unhappily...with incredulous eyes. What
they saw appalled him. He was appalled to death.
-
Yes, and then so am I. No whitewashed
fences will fool me here. I sit in Lady Wilson's
garden, watching curtains of flowers grow, and
I wonder why and what they are. I should be
so moved. Liquid crystal cellulose held firm
in the shape of leaf or bloom - but not too
firm, as I can crush them with my fingers, see.
As Life can crush me. As the Sunlight is hot.
As the burden is oppressive. As my eyes can see.
I am appalled to death. I am appalled to death.

839. THE SWEETEST ANIMAL EVER

THE SWEETEST
ANIMAL EVER
And all things are blocked off :
my veins are clogged, arteries filled,
capillaries jammed, organs wasted.
No different than any of the rest, I
will die saying fulsome prayers to an
animal God. Filled with loathing, one of
us, anyway - either this God for me and
my kind, or me for whatever that Word represents.
Disgusting Kingdom, spectacle of lies, mis-represented
natural states, bastard men taking advantage, cheaters and
killers, mother-fucking soldier-types stealing from Mankind,
even in the name of this God, missionary nit-pickers knowing
it all. I stand aside from everything I see. Lost in grace, I be me.
-
The only true capital is Creativity; that
intuitive longing for place and time, that
far palace of the sun, that fair Kingdom, set
on a distant hill. High atop a distant hillside, I am
secure and confident (and distant too) - and I
only know that what will do is the making of
a system of my own, for that of another man
will never do.

838. THIS CHILL-OUT DOCTRINE I'VE HEARD SO MUCH ABOUT

THIS CHILL-OUT DOCTRINE

I'VE HEARD SO

MUCH ABOUT
Durable fantastic and all the cartoon characters
one could want, most ably waiting at the
corner stoplight. The Magnolia tree I see
has dropped all its petaled blossoms to
the ground. The sight - now upon that
ground - is awesome still and the scent
still bravely roils the morning air. The
black, metal fence - old style and right -
itself too gets proudly petal-draped.
-
I haven't the matter to make a
motion nor - mainly a care in
the world. The spin-top rotates
its virtue on an Earth which - for
all purposes here - might just as
well be a tabletop flat.

837. NOW YOU DID IT

NOW YOU DID IT
Mantle-max the monstrance Michael.
Now you've really done it; the stained-glass
window man is coming at us, spewing forth
his ridiculous information while asking
where we're from. I say nothing. You
answer, 'Oklahoma'. He buys it all, I
guess based on your silly fake accent.
Being a 'tourist' was never this
much fun. They were having,
right then, a 'wedding', he said.
Could we please come back
another time to look at
the stained-glass
windows?

836. THIS IS HAPPINESS

THIS IS HAPPINESS
Mark your choices, all you separate Gods;
this is the one steely place in which evidences
reside. The signification of the riverside, the
flat, planar reality of the lagoon or the bay.
-
You should have known all this before you started -
thus I can only assume you did. Full knowledge, due
diligence, all that sticky and usual legal stuff.
The swoosh of the baseball man's mitt, the crack of
the bat, the sound of the swallow, the crash of a car.
There is nothing, really, dividing the dark from the light,
the sound from the fury or this today from the
yesterday that was, no wasn't Either way, the grand
fable continues in a soft, joking voice. 'I live inside
a bubble of summer even in winter.' And that little
boy, who turned out to be, in fact, a cross-eyed,
albino philosopher spouting lyrics to Irish songs, he
was really my heart, at full sing-song tilt, running on.

835. TRAVELING MIDWAY

TRAVELING MIDWAY

My raiment is your blue coat.
Swaddled in a form of human ash,
the light coating becomes us both -
we look best in this light dusting,
an elemental brush of mortal man.
-
It is swingtime in the country. The guy
with the fiddle is tuning up, while a
few others are throwing hay-bales around
the old dance-barn floor. Ladies with pies
make an entrance.
-
From Oklahoma and Missouri to Texas,
it seems, they know best how to do these things.
Animals laze in the nearby fields, while the
fiddlers and the dancers play.

834. ADDLE-BRAINED CORKSCREW CONFUSED MONSTER-MAN

ADDLE-BRAINED CORKSCREW
CONFUSED MONSTER-MAN
There was a time when, between moments of clarity,
my raging sensations made me seem quite mad.
My father had me sent away, my mother wrung
her constant hands in anguish - it was always
as if the 'other' shoe had not yet dropped.
Perhaps they thought I would blow up the world.
Her washcloth and dish towel, I remember, used
to hang distended - one around her neck, one over
her wrist - as she cried. Mostly about me, and the
anguish I was causing. All of this made me feel quite
bad, yet I could never articulate my pain.
My father, after the occasional beating
he'd inflict on me, on the other hand,
never said a word - certainly no 'I'm
sorry', and nothing that ever, in any
way showed reflection of what had
been occurring. Eventually, I
went back home with them.
-
No sainted martyrdom was ever more pathetic.
My life was a sorry spectacle, and I grew in
clumps I couldn't recognize. A few years of this,
one of that, another that - anger, hurt, creativity,
compensation, existential rage, love, lust.
Everything a'kimbo and all jumbled harsh
together. I was my own worst guardian,
oftentimes not on speaking terms
even with myself.
-
Addle-brained corkscrew confused monster-man.
Confusing, mixed-up, angry, delinquent vogue boy.
All those things, and so much more, they said, was I.

833. PINCUS BARKER

PINKUS BARKER
I am dissolved in flames.
I have left my notebook
at home. To itemize for you:
it is blue and on its cover is a picture of
some buildings now long gone. The binding
has become quite weak, so that the pages move,
sometimes up and down but most often sideways.
The hand on each of the pages is my own - black pen,
lines and lines of words. Here and there a drawing.
Of something. Whatever. Tales, poems, stories, notes.
-
I cannot usually be this clear abut anything.
The simple cataloging just now done has been enough
to drive me quite and veritably nuts. Distracted.
Annoyed. Usually, by some form of a vague,
broad-ranging intuition do I do such things.
For me, my fellows, life is simpler that way.

832. THE ODDS OF ILLUSION

THE ODDS OF ILLUSION
(Gnomes)
Don't just count the gnomes, knock them
over and destroy them. The odds of
illusion are in your favor : a makeshift
factotum, which is yours for the taking.
The altar, I swear, was burning.
-
The hem runs too fast at situations
like this : a swoosh and a swirl, a
gingerly girl twirling about in the sun.
-
Artificial tintypes would do this scene no justice.
-
Two swift brothers were walking by, all eyes :
nosy noses, into everything peering and
'had to know'. I cannot say this sort of thing
in certain polite company, or shouldn't,
so I won't, thus didn't.
-
Guess what, Nicole? You have beautiful wandering
breasts - let me think to say - 'wandering out
of their shirt this hot today.' We each live,
and we learn, I'm thinking. The sterner
fat, over the open flames, drips
to the bottom of the pan.

831. A MERE BAGATELLE

A MERE BAGATELLE
You weren't supposed to notice how this really
sounds like a Mid-East person's name instead
of what it is - Emir Bar Gatelle, or something.
Yet, despite talking, the Sun paints a yellow on
the sitting room's fancy, the light in the glasses
clinks. The man selling rosaries two doors down -
he's still running that stupid Christmas lightning
nightly on Nassau - walks around like a dwarf
looking for height, nodding and reaching. All I
can do is assume he's (Good-Great God) praying
again! It's two holidays later and he's still lighting
up the night. Fitful buggermaster, I'd bet.
-
It happened once at the harem. And Buddha
arm-wrestled Jesus, while the winner took
on Mr. Mohammad. Thirty-seven and sixth-tenth
Virgins were ready, in Heaven, to assault the victor.
Or, something like that - I really forget how it went.
All that pathetic Doctrine knocking and banging
inside my head. I want to run home screaming!

830. THEY WERE PLASTERING THE NEW PLASTER WITH PLASTER

THEY WERE PLASTERING

THE NEW PLASTER

WITH PLASTER
(Talent)
I didn't know why. A good dose of something
bad had gotten to me. I cursed even the
swagger of the Sun and Moon. Looking
for Gods, I checked my cards.
-
I motioned to Philip Guston, and he stopped
what he was doing, came over, and laughed
at my cartoon. A big-footed man was trying
on a very small shoe. 'If I bought five of these,
I could at least cover my toes.' The caption,
we agreed, wasn't really worth
the price of admission.
-
The same thing happened when
Sunday arrived. We talked about
Nietzsche and his 'Theory
of Eternal Recurrence.'

829. CRAZY MAN BLUES

CRAZY MAN BLUES
Don't [please] go by me [now], I'm crazy.
I froze in July. Membo-premaic cozy
was I - shrugging the froth right over
the open. My fantastic nightmares, remember,
were your pork-lined simulacra [forced by
meta-matter really shagrid hooey]. I rode
in my Ameriko lines on your chop suey.
[Can I hold your hands yet, Madame Cantooey?].

828. DOUBLE AMALGAMATED SWEETNESS FACTORY

DOUBLE AMALGAMATED
SWEETNESS FACTORY
How they came in hordes, those minions -
walking bared planks to ship-berthings and
wild docks. Some sailed and died, some
managed, some puked and survived.
We had children born and doused
below deck too. It was a crazy
cantilevered passage both
bitter and hard - like
this life too, but with
a promised place on the
other side, on that other
shore : unknown walkings
brought this fervid tribe to
fruition. Harbor, heart, homeland,
homage (but Heaven, not quite).

827. EASTER

EASTER
Geometry is an asteroid devoid of
form, chunking its way endlessly on a
winding trek through a darkless void.
I hear a voice discoursing on matter,
and I want to wonder too - 'what
really is the matter?' At Easter,
they say, even the bread has to
rise, and the river, and interest
rates, and all the rest. Dead again,
oh, dead again, really, everything
must rise again. Now, tell me,
what actually is the matter?
Geometry is an empty void
chunking its way on a winding
trek through matter. Dead again,
oh, dead again, now everything
must rise again.

826. THOSE ORIGINAL MAFIA TRANSACTIONS

THOSE ORIGINAL
MAFIA TRANSACTIONS
...They kept me from sleeping right, left me
always on edge - the orange powder in
the coffee, the bullets kept in the bottom
of Lorenzo Laurentia's shoe. On the corner
of Baxter or somewhere I'd just as soon
forget - near where Orange Street once
used to be - they gunned down Ace Lombardi
and his butcher and his kid for something three
years back. I could never figure these things out.
-
It's not a man of strength who keeps things
going, I've noticed; it's the strength of Man.
It's not a Living Will you need, it's a
will to live indeed you need.
-
'Gates of Heaven/Eternal Light' was the
cemetery these assholes used. They may
as well have been walking a Disneyland of
Crime, for what it mattered - all that pomp
and circumstance, carloads of flowers, arms
under the elbows of some weak and willowy
widow. For nothing it was, no more than a
Pope's obeisance to the Divine and Death :
something that axiomatic, the circular ramblings
fully reflective only of the true nihilism within.
Dead bodies carpeted with stone.

825. THE VILLAGE OF ERSATZ

THE VILLAGE OF ERSATZ
Sable mushroom tree-bark branch;
flowers across the landscape, and a shed.
Looming, at the edge of the scene, a bell-tower,
a campanile, something which looks as if it
was there for five hundred years.
Of course, it wasn't. This entire
place was only groomed and
put together last year. Like
a fake wine in an ancient
flask, it's an easy trick,
until you ask.

824. I'LL HAVE THE MAGIC POTION

I'LL HAVE THE
MAGIC POTION
Standing at the brick wall, with the
yellow and blue grafitti all over it,
those two fellows look like walk-on
characters in a play of someone's dream.
Bad or good, I'll not say, but I like it either way.
I watch their hands as they're turning something,
each, over and over. I don't realize what it is
until I watch them really closely - and notice
they're each holding kittens. Playful-stage kittens,
not too young and not too old - kittens who still
cavort and chase with their eyes and paws.
'How'd they end up with those?' I ask
myself, of the two guys. The
answer I get is direct and potent:
'We painted them, and they came to life.'

823. REGRETS AND MORE

REGRETS AND MORE
Ahead of a million miles are a million
more - meaning, I think, that one never
gets where one's going. Although it never
feels like that - all the burden is felt behind
and not so much ahead : where the fun's
supposed to be. I wash my hands of that.
-
Periwinkle and willow.
An old farmhouse at the
edge of a stream and meadow.
Together they've probably fought
five-hundred storms. Wind-whipped,
cyclonic, crazy atmospherics. The fog
ripped through here, one March, like
a fiery furnace on legs of steam - a
weather-born locomotive ripping and
clawing at each item in its path.
Everything survived.
-
I realized, just as quickly, that I'd
mixed things up one too many times:
metaphors, people, situations. As soon
as I had spoken, I realized the wrong
words had just left my mouth. Well, I
guess you can't blame an orphan for
its parents, nor blame the tiger
for the lamb.

822. YOUR BROKEN BROADWAY RECORD

YOUR BROKEN
BROADWAY RECORD
A waning moon rides over the open
field in the early morning bright; the
flat water too dazzles. Someone's
shimmering light, Gatsby-like, dances
over the wet expanse. Reflections ripple
as things appear to gobble each other up.
Colorless light, light with color, no matter.
We remain - the sum total of all our moments
as people. We drink, therefore, from a cup -
a final goodness, a thank-you fellowship, a
summing up of grand polity and grace, together.
-
I cannot watch the kick-steps the wild
chorus-girls are doing - no Sunday In
the Park With George for me. This so
quickly turns ribald and raw. I ache, in a
never-ending tooth-like pulsing, and
want relief. Can you hand me that
Broadway moment, please?
-
The quick-talker eludes - his
fast words escape both meaning
and full intention. Such park-bums
in Summer just say what they
will, say what they say.
-
'Beneath the lilies and antelopes and
blue monkeys are darker things :
the Minotaur, the Labyrinth, the
double-faced axe inscribed on
an ancient death-sacrifice pillar.'
It would seem, (would it not?), that
all of this remains OK with me.
I am the voiceless one, the
mute disciple, the monkey
clambering now up that
slick, greased tree.