925. PRETEND YOU CARE

PRETEND YOU CARE
Pretend you care about the price of babies
in China, pretend you care about captives and
death. Pretend you care about hostages in Haiti.
Pretend you care about men running borders
and fighters and old men starving and kids
on meth. Pretend it matters, even for a moment,
that some don't eat, that some drink water
that's bad, that others, housed in mud
hovels, go blind before they're ten. Pretend,
if you can, that religious people can't lie, and
that fighters are always right and the men
who gives speeches and hold office are
always honest and bright.
-
No, though I know, it's impossible,
no, I say you must go on. Pretend
things are right. Pretend there's no
alarm. Our arms are crossed in
obeisance. Our consciences
are clear.

924. RANDOM COLLECTIVE

RANDOM COLLECTIVE
They are sitting out in the light.
'Your Honor, my client is a poor
black man.' Whatever he meant, I
did not know : doing the job of a
black man poorly? Or being a
black man with no money?
Surely, he meant one
or the other.
-
I tire of things easily:
my spendthrift ways have
killed me, my banners, the
winds have whipped and ruined.
I wonder, when I look at them,
'why is it that red always fades away?'
-
Tightrope bicycle accelerator diorama.
The men in the particle smasher are all
famed PhD's, working on a top-secret project.

923. GANGRENE THE UNIVERSE

GANGRENE THE UNIVERSE
Damn the bezel once more! The rooftop itself is
gone. People looking up, gazing at things in wonder -
true Life, as never seen before : the wonders of
each moment, animal life, human-kind, all things.
We enter this strange museum at our own peril.
-
Well what can you pant at when the
excitement's done? A few fallen trees,
some guy putting new paint on his outside
wall, a blackbird, yelling at the wind.
-
I sourced the outtake to the woodpile by
the river : just about where Ellis last
took a snooze. The canoes were leisurely
bobbing on the water, while a few kids
went skating by on their runs.
-
On the whole, I really had nothing to do,
nor wanted to be doing anything at all.
Damn the bezel once more.

922. THE LAST DAY OF MAY

THE LAST DAY OF MAY
Get yourself set up very nicely, with all
things in their places - at least you'd think.
But then, by token surprise, we are greeted
not only by all the other things but by the voices
of old men singing the tired despairs of their lives.
Like hopeless diamonds. Maybe once would be
tolerable, but in earnest they just go on and on.
-
The wet, heavy dew of this morning's overnight,
this morning's colder May dawn, like a picnic
spread on water-glistened grass, opens its riches
for each squirrel and each bird. And, yes, it seems
they all partake. There are no old men in such a
morning moment. House-wren, robin, sparrow,
red-wing blackbird and Balt-i-more Oriole.

921. IMOGENE

IMOGENE
I miss you, Imogene.
I'd imagined that was your
shadow indeed coming over
the fireplace grate out here, near
the table where I sat. Lo. I was mistaken.
You were always a shadow to me, and
would be so evermore (even if I could see).

920. RAILSPACK HEIGHTS

RAILSPACK HEIGHTS
Railspack Heights, the place where the strivers
live, bounded by jazz and calypso. An
unseen mix to be sure, but one more than
worth seeing up close. Doves on the
blanket. Small fish served on bread.
-
We sat back and thought about where
we were. Along the riverbank, where
the mud was still shiny, the limbs and
broken branches of last week's flooding
hung haphazardly over the grasses.
-
I have thought about little else since.
Red wine, spilling like blood,
over the edge of the glass.

919. BY THE WAY

BY THE WAY
By the way,
I wanted to say,
I get the hang of it and
it's all really nothing at all.
I'm sick of my own temperature
and fever and would rather just
lie down and die than stand before
what I see. Gruesome loads of
oh-so-dead fish, now washed up on
the same shore where the equally-expired
seals are rotting. Why cares about Durango Bay
when we've got the whole world at our fingers?
Why limit the damage to one such small spot?
Let's fuck it up big time, and ruin all we've got.

918. CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS

Banishment forever!

One step up from your slumdog Goddess!

Your hands can't touch what your eyes can't see.

Or can they? One step from Heaven or five steps from Hell?

Whichever direction you go, it's always something.
Or, well, anyway - it never was anything I had
to be concerned over. My cloak was never
your garment.
-
Wind in the willows, owl in the tree.
Morning arises like an unsettled marker -
brooding red, deep and orangey-dark,
on the always-dangerous highway horizon.
I watch the trucks sneak by : all their torrid
combinations of noise, leaky fluids, gear-whine
smacks and the gruesome sound of big rubber
on pavement. Sometimes, only sometimes maybe,
I wish I was deaf for an hour.
-
They said some Virgin Mary came here from
Wichita - with a guidebook and an ace bandage.
Scouring the neighborhoods for winsome young lads,
the few she could contact were already engaged.
Baseball. Apple Pie. Mom. Chevrolet.
Any of that old American stuff. Like
Tom Sawyer on a five-dollar
bill. Any of that old,
American stuff.

917. THE ATMOSPHERE IN ALL ETERNITY

THE ATMOSPHERE
IN ALL ETERNITY
I was once just like you -
with two hands in the eastern pocket
and a gumshoe on my wand, with the kettle
pockmarked by rust and wishing to be forgotten,
the lamp in the hoarfrost descending, and the
lonely gilfrist running down. But, you also
should remember, I was - at one time just
as well - really quite unique. With my
marklight overdue and the spacious
argument of the court-cost
lawyer making no real
sense to anyone
at all.

916. THE ADEPT, THE ADROIT SKIMMER ON THE FACE OF THE POND

THE ADEPT, THE ADROIT

SKIMMER ACROSS THE

FACE OF THE POND
Just like the water running its sideways
rivulet through the mud and silt, I'm
sitting where the rocks run themselves flat
'twixt water and grass. A few trees here low
overhang. Over to the right, the long-abandoned
cabin I'm staying in leans and wilts like some old
mid-Summer tree just a'hanging in the noonday heat.
Nothing moves more than a shimmer; the adept,
the adroit skimmer across the face of the pond.
On the outside wall somehow still hangs a
shovel and a rake. No one's imaginatively
touched them for years - or leastways for
seasons. An old, wet curtain, remnants
really, hangs out of what once was a
window and a ledge. Like the Bible
would'a put it...'Dampness was
on the face of the Earth.'

915. MY RANDOM MOLECULAR COUSINS

MY RANDOM
MOLECULAR COUSINS
(the Malarkey Brothers Religous Tent Service, 1972)
Were targa-time remnants to come,
now would be the moment. I am sheathed
in a scarf of ivory - like a sculpture, like
a memorial. Martyred dead, unshod masses,
those slaughtered for what they believe.
In an otherwise broad gesture we too are
marching to a Praetoria, of sorts. Gold watches
hang from chains, wrists on crosses, nailed hands -
all these things bleed, momentary truths and tokens.
All those soulful mourners singing, they march across
the street from where the killings first took place.
A source-book for the redness of the river's blood.
The soda fountain makes a lie of the color red.
Even the Cardinal from St. Matthias' Residence,
he whacks off in rhythm to only the Gods of his
own frantic desire: eternal life, the collection plate,
the resounding success of 'Thy Will Be Done.'

914. THE BOXER REBELLION

THE BOXER REBELLION
(1910)
'There are many Christian converts who have
lost their senses. They deceive our Emperor,
destroy the Gods we worship. They pull
down our temples and altars, permit neither
joss-sticks nor candles, and cast away
our tracts on ethics. They ignore reason.
Don't you realize that their aim is
to engulf our country?'
-
I am resting on this highland hillside.
Near me, a red wing blackbird sings,
and a quick robin scurries along
the ground. The yellow sun is
high atop the sky. I am
seeing this, and I am happy.
Were the Revolution to
finally come, I know I
would not die.

913. AS LONG AS I COULD DO ANYONE, I'D DO YOU

AS LONG AS I COULD DO
ANYONE, I'D DO YOU
(Central Park)
The skyline was bleeding and I was
doing nothing but sitting here reading
a book. What a useless soul! All along
the dismal swamp, beavers and otters were
thinking together : what shall we do
when this city is gone?
-
The fat, rich ladies with their whoresome
daughters - the beautiful ones, the shy ones,
the smart ones - they were just sitting there
to await the tea and the scones, any of those
myriad desserts come flinging. I caught
one girl's eye, and showed her my tongue.
-
What do you do with money? Simply
throw it back in someone's face? Or try
to find finery of velvet and lace? The
line outside the Museum was growing.
Sickening people, standing up to
see the past. I knew things were
dwindling, but not this fast.

912. SASS SQUAD

SASS SQUAD
Quasimodo Alkalai and
all the rest. A guy walks into
a bar, throws his ashes on the floor
and says 'who says you can't be in
two places at once, that's what I want
to know?' Bartender looks up, says,
'Buddy, are you dead or are you alive,
and who's gonn'a pay for your drinks?'
The whole place then erupts into a
Hallelujah chorus. The dead guy seems
to slip away. At that point, flipping
a coin, I decided I didn't care which
way. And, therefore, why then
should you?
-
Straphangers everywhere
need to beware. Mad killer
on board, better take care.
-
Let's hear one for the needle, boys;
I've still got the marks inside my
arm. 'It's my first day on the
job,' she says, 'it's going
really slow.'

911. PASSED OVER BY FIRE

PASSED OVER BY FIRE
(the Holy Ghost)
The wind came through on a pass -
welcomed by no one but present in spite.
Windows shook while the preachers spoke.
Bells rang themselves in a fury of noise.
A cat, creeping by, stayed as close to
the building's edge as it could.
-
If I could have Littlejohn's eyes, I'd
probably see just as well : all things,
intentional or not. Mrs. Wambercotey's
housedress flapping, the sauce in
the bib of her coat. What I could
do with such knowledge would
prove that knowledge is
power. Just like the
preacher just said.
-
Too bad they know
so little. Too bad
they know so
little at all.

910. TESTAMENTARY

TESTAMENTARY
Dark men in hoods, with their crazy lights in the sky.
I am aware of nothing, but I am aware of them.
I have seen the written markings, their ancient
plans of ships - brown markings on sepia and faded
parchments. Stories of the sacred seas. Stories of the sky.
When I went up to their craft, they seemed to welcome
me in, forcing me to sit in a bath made of silver or
lead. I was 7 years old, and, really, quite

dead - 'til they brought me to Life.

909. MORDANT TRESPASS

A MORDANT TRESPASS
I'm walking past the open fence as people stare
out - blank moons with strange lunar craters.
As I pass, they watch. But they are not real.
They are chimeras that I have imagined in a
real pursuit. In my actuality, I am alone,
inhabiting a world filled with figments
and nothing more. I nod; they speak.
'I have lost my garment and torn what's
left.' I smile, and am forced only
to say 'but you look so nice in the
rags you are wearing.' And, indeed,
she did. As, indeed, did they
all. Only I, myself, stood out -
singularly clad in a strange
raiment of gold.

908. OH MOTHER

OH MOTHER

(from 1958 'til now)

The guy at the corner, the guy at the

corner, driving his car through the

meat-store window. Mother, there are

a rather few things I've forgotten to tell

you - that little store is long gone, replaced

now by a derelict and quite shabby 'professional'

building, long after it was, for many years, a big

thriving, chain supermarket. In between, so much

like you and me, it was nothing at all. Also, I now

have noticed a few 'working' girls working the

corner, for the 'massage parlor' inside. Everything

like this is quite a joke. These girls disrobe for free -

only the rest you have to pay for. Professional fees

negotiable of course. Oh long-gone mother, does this

make it, once again, a meat market, and have we

really come full circle like this?

907. THERE'S NO MAD INTENTION IN LIVING THIS WAY, NO MAD INTENTION AT ALL

THERE'S NO MAD INTENTION

IN LIVING THIS WAY, NO

MAD INTENTION AT ALL

Like the forgotten moment's undertow;
'we may have built the pyramids just like
the pyramids built us. A magic confabulation
of mystical likes and dislikes. We confound it all
now.' Running trains on time, signing treaties
on nuclear arms and debt and trade, shooting
dissenters, or having them shot, from distant
windows and ledges and walls. In the long run,
all this nothing will make no difference, and, as
Keynes has mentioned before, 'in the long run,
we're all dead.' Just like the pyramids' magical
undertow, we have all been swept away.

906. MILLICENT

MILLICENT
She keeps running down - like a
tired dog, she slumbers. I watch
her with a mad intention of
magazine pages and notebook
sheafs. At a certain level, all
people look alike. Millicent tries
sitting erect; her thinly trod
pants, like leggings, grip her skin.
Her fingers try holding the newspaper
and the glass, together, as she talks.

905. TOUR

TOUR
It's sometimes hard to imagine
the whistle-stop tour stopping.
Or going on; continuation being
another matter entire. It's never
automatic - all along the way
we've got all those bills to pay.

904. DISCOVERED AT HEART TO BE A SIMPLE MAN

DISCOVERED AT HEART
TO BE A SIMPLE MAN
Yes, that's me. Inglorious and
found at heart to be. Satisfied
with where I'm going, able to
shuffle off at will, determined
still not to be seen. Back at work
and liking it. Seated at a miser's
desk and locked in at the knees.
-
Nothing much more controverted
than that. List of friends - meaningless
if at all; acquainted with doctors, none.
Able to speak with the bigwigs and
kings - 'fraid not and I'm not besot.
By these means, even I, to use an
Orwell phrase, keep the Aspidistra
flying, or at least elevated, or at least
at large. Elated. A simple man at heart.

903. DOUBTLESS HE WAS TAKING RUSSIA FOR AN ISLAND

DOUBTLESS HE WAS TAKING
RUSSIA FOR AN ISLAND*
No, that's not me, that's Baudelaire.
French gruesome politics in a most
laughing manner. This riposte means
more malice than you'd think. It's the
sort of thing we'd like to say, in private.
-
I am holding a bar of lead in my hand.
It seems to weigh about ten pounds -
a sash weight, an ingot for melting,
who knows. Having been found in
the back of an old truck, it means
nothing to me. Linotype machines
used to melt these down for hot-
liquid lead to make type. I know.
I worked one in 1967.
-
He seems to take Russia for an island;
asking if it were possible to get there by land.
-

*After 'At One o'clock in the Morning' ('A Une Heure
du Matin') - Charles Baudelaire

902. PLATYPUS

PLATYPUS*
(my philosophy is hatred)
You would ask why and what is meant.
I knew that : Greenpoint and Williamsburg,
they all ask at once. It's really simple.
Wherever logic and linear thought
raise their heads, I abhor.
The world is not a straight line
construction - nothing matching
hopes and expectations. Those who
say so...they lie. Their breath is
but expectoration. They speak with malice.

-

*After 'A Season in Hell' - Arthur Rimbaud

901. THE HERMIT

THE HERMIT
Why was I holding the moon in my hands,
and who was it said so? No more frozen
ground than this was there - iced intellect
and hardened emotion. I spoke, and in thus
speaking to clowns I withered. With so little
to say I moved on. Eating dead bones and
manners - or, gnawing like a dog on the past -
I busied myself with great things made small,
not small things made great. Tuxedo and top hat
not, formal clothing away - the eccentric mode
took center stage. Simultaneous and direct,
together, I broadly swept the stage. 'I am one
man, yes, but all my own, and that can be enough
to make the difference work.' I turned on all the
lights and set to endeavor my hearts and wishes too.
In no such condition was I to be found : this is
why the wise man hides away. This is
why the wise man hides away.

900. DOORWAY AND FENCE

DOORWAY AND FENCE
Henry and Mark and David.
Jane and Jill and Mary.
Simple names like these
establish presence.
I am looking through a
doorway by a prism of
light on the wall. The
afternoon sun reflects
itself back. Window.
Lamp. Door. Sill.
Chair. Outside, green
leaves ripple in the wind.
The white square of the fence,
it seems, keeps it all in.

899. WALKING MAN ZEN

WALKING MAN ZEN
Harrow.
Harrowing.
Harrowing flight.
Harrowing flight school.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees buzzing.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees buzzing farmers.
Harrowing flight school for bumblebees buzzing farmers harrowing.

898. 34th STREET BRIDGE

34th STREET BRIDGE
The bridge and its towers together
rest - stone, brick and metal sunning.
The people talk, looking for their places
this side of a university town. We are
really nowhere, yet I am with you; holding
bags, gripping a luggage - with my free hand,
touching your hair. It is like that, and I can
think of nothing but the future now. The
sound of a train floats in the air,
as traffic whizzes below.

897. ONE THING ABOUT L'AVVENTURA

ONE THING
ABOUT L'AVVENTURA
We go out, leaving through the central
doorway. She wears a white scarf,
entwined around her neck like the
tendrils of a vine. The noise of
shoes on flooring is heard.
-
Raucous behavior, I have come to find,
is not new : Edie Sedgewick and all that
crowd, in and of itself, tried defining
a time by just such antics. Something
about that book always had an ending.
-
Now, instead, I stand outside your
window, looking in. The most
beautiful people in the world,
and all their expenses, are lined
up at the marble counter. Each one
pays their price, and the Turkish
guy, the most suave gent there
is, kisses each woman, gently,
on the cheek as they leave.

896. DISAPPEAR BY INTENTIONS

DISAPPEAR BY INTENTIONS
The evidences of the aftermath remain:
names scrawled on walls, houses disfigured
by paint, vandalism at every corner. Two
old cars, down on their springs, sagging in some
corner lot. The schoolyard fence, fallen in, has
lost its basketball nets. At the corner, the old
red-brick firehouse marked '1894' stands
proudly but forlorn - bereft of any use
and meaning. Kids stare back, at nothing,
wincing to belch or throwing some
stones. It's now a cat-like world -
silent but for meowing, when not
chasing some useless yarn.

895. NOT HAVING DONE

NOT HAVING DONE
(no new enactment)
'Not having done a thing right all
day long worth doing blue under sky
patchwork raincloud vista rubric totally
mine. For now, the new robot rules
the idiot roost but no new paradigm yet
encampment seems in place SO I stand
aside and watch the sky - looking up with
hands at side : notice this they say and watch
fair clouds passing high distant jet plane looming
hawks and vultures and ravens; these things all
skinny-dipping in the Heavens. Why not I?
Then you : my silver-sleeved dreamer,
waltzing now slowly across a
glimmering faint light.'

894. CIRCLE

CIRCLE
(Gather up the men at Carston)
I am yours the way thread belongs to
this coat, the way the nail belongs to
the hammer. The cross to the beam.
The ice to the icicle. All together in
a togetherness - not that I know
what any of this really means,
but, in the manner of the
letters belonging to the
word, perhaps you
already grasp what
it is I mean.

893. FOOLISH DOGS

FOOLISH DOGS
Oarsmen to the helm,
jackhammers to the pavement.
See them go! Hear them work!
All things exist - just as we assume -
for this singular moment in time.
Edifying to think this way! No?
Foolish dogs. Sun in sky.

892. PIANO SPLICING

PIANO SPLICING
'We are breaking up the room
and the space and the sound too.
How? Why? There doesn't seem to be
a science-answer. And anyway all this
is not just physical.' There really was
nothing more to say.
-
Astral spectral solar fissure
space and time with that fleeting
hole of moment we live in. 'Momentous?
No, not always nearly not but
empty too just is.' Moment alone
by one - ten thousand splicing
like sound. Overlapping chords
and learning then to intermingle
singles. Notes like this run on
forever. Notes like this run on
forever. Notes like this run on
forever.....

891. THIS IS ALL CONJECTURE THIS IS ALL SHOT FROM THE HIP

THIS IS ALL CONJECTURE
THIS IS ALL SHOT

FROM THE HIP
Moments like this make me wince - preamble
and recitation and I did the yellow dishes in
the sink but wasn't happy about it HATE the
color too ! the landlord came down the
stairway saying your rent was due and I gave
him one in the face and a kick while he was
down - here's the tip - next month's rent in
advance. So I guess you're set. Do the
library rhumba now with Bobbie. It
never entered my mind that you could
fit through the mail slot - Jeez how
was I to know and why?
Just because you saw
me once doesn't
mean you'll see
me again.

890. AT JUNCTION CORNER

AT JUNCTION CORNER
This is wild country; this is crazy land.
I wanted nothing back, so gave as little as
I can. From serendipity to stupidity, most
any highway runs you there. Storefronts
closed by the mescaline police - gerrymandered
outposts of sadness and grief, an outlook of
dismay. The Civil War era opera hall yet
stands, oblique to its corner like any
angle on a stage of bamboo.
Catcalls from the fat halls.
-
Wham-bam gesture Sam,
acolytes in LaLa Land.
Hear the roaring crowd
explode. All applaud
this lonesome load.
-
This is will country; this is crazy land.

889. TIMOTHY

TIMOTHY
Take a pose. Any.
And they all roll in.
One after the other,
the Tinker Street crowd.
Swear they are happy, all.
Even about the snow in Buffalo.
-
There comes a point
(in every asylum) where
nothing matters any longer.
A residual timeclock is ticking.
-
The craftsman strolls in.
Plasterer or drywall, or something.
White painter clothes, tool box,
lunch box, bucket, container;
carrying everything in his rough,
knowing hands. Coarse by contrast
to the space around him.
-
Erudition and punctiliousness are
mainstays of another, far more
proper, time. And then here comes
Butler Kendrick, with all his savvy
saunter, to do it all again.

888. THERE WAS A TIME

THERE WAS A TIME
Time curved. Images arc'd.
Reality ducked and dove.
Nothing was to be what it
seemed. The first light of
Eternity dawning : before
meanings, before names.
One place. One person.
A vast homunculus of
dawning possibility.
All things. There
was a time.

887. PAIRED

PAIRED
I have been paired with a
magic symbol; we go everywhere
together I know. It never speaks,
just shines immaculate and pure
and pristine. A golden glow. A
vital sign. I'd never thought of
this before, and used to laugh at
all the rest : Immaculate Heart
of Jesus, Sacred Heart of Mary...
whatever all that might have been.
Now I've got my own sacred symbol;
my paired throbbing light from within.

886. PROPERTY IS THEFT

PROPERTY IS THEFT
He's that man with the new country ways,
says 'How come I never heard of Mount
Minuscule at all?' Petty criminals end up
in jail, big ones end up very rich. This was
like Preacher Jimmy Allen, straight
out of the Ozarks, to you. 'Shoutin' the
Word everywhere's I can!' - as he said it.
-
'That sleazy fucking Father Knows Best
pervert called me Princess. If he does
that again I swear I'll rip his throat out
somehow and stuff the opening with his
balls.'
-
'He don't mean nothing. He don't know
no better - it ain't anyways like a smoking
gun. He didn't touch you, y'know. Not like the
last time anyway, with my sister Eleanor.
When he was done with her that night on
the football field, she came home with a
big white stripe across the back of her brown
jacket, from the grass on the field, the lime line.
Should'a killed that mother-fucker then, for her.'
-
Two cars rumbled by - dust-jacket silhouettes
right out of some holy Detroit nightmare, thrashing
the dusty road all dirt and gravel, piercing the clear
air with their metal-plastic thrall.
-
'Just like that, I decided I hated him.'
-
One of the cars halted - a dead-black sedan - and
went into reverse. 'Preacher car, preacher car,
answered prayers here you are!' was heard right
before two shots rang out, the glass-shattering
retort heard on window and metal with gunpowder
shock, while inside the now-stopped car (a dead
stop, to be sure), slumped the body of Preacher
Ronnie McClure.

885. MOONLIGHT EXACERBATED EATING CONTEST

MOONLIGHT EXACERBATED
EATING CONTEST
Everyone took a number and then stuffed
themselves with cupcakes. Or at least
that's what the sign said. Everyone sat
down in a row and then drank gallons of milk.
Or at least that's what the newsman said.
Everyone fell over, writhing on the ground.
Or at least that's what the police report said.
Some new kind of witches, a coven of
harmless fools, a militaristic nature cult.
That was crowd talk. You pick.
-
This is what happens when Mankind gets
crowded, when too many people live in
one place, when neuroses and anxieties
have taken over and prospered.
Cows lick salt. Mankind licks
its own ill illusions. All
this, and a highway
runs past.

884. FREEDOM

FREEDOM

It's the sauce of a man that

makes the spice. Whittled to a

time of his own, space and locus

understood - 'to be, or not...' questions

nothing but the operation. The river that

runs and the woods that move, all flavor

the feeling of Mankind's mood. On the horizon

bleakly sunning, all doubt and reason do I see;

and in shackles, oh poor Liberty.

883. MALVERN HILL

MALVERN HILL
There was a bridge curving over
the river, right there, at Malvern Hill.
I know, I saw it, I watched and I
walked it. The most beautiful place in
the world - something even my
imagination could not take all in.
Like spread fingers split by a
beautiful sunshine, the arms of
trees sheltered all the world beneath:
bright light in the valley, bright light
up above. Past it all, a gentle people
went on their way - the masons and the
carvers and the painters and the farmers.
At the dirt road's edge, near the grand
yellow house, a single rooster
was pecking the ground.

882. ALL THOSE OUTSIZED HANDS

ALL THOSE

OUTSIZED HANDS
All those outsized hands, which know nothing,
which do nothing, are now outstretched as well.
They uphold what, I ask : the faint law of a
retribution, the thieving law of stealth and money?
If so, then we are accomplices just by living.
-
I have watched the criminal and the cop,
two sides of a coin, both go down. I have
seen the judge, gagged and withered,
dying in his robes. The legislator
on parade, a hangman's noose
around his neck.
-
It's all so very simple.
There's nothing
truthful left.

881. DARKNESS

DARKNESS
The man was saying: 'my mother had
an interior life all of her very own...'
I was wondering back to him - 'with you,
or without you?' And then, as the
colored lights in the room came on, I turned
and said aloud - 'for whatever purposes of
mankind or fate, it certainly couldn't have
mattered to her whether you were aware of
this or not, so why bring it up now? She's
long dead, and what do you know anyway?'
He seemed to shudder, and a look came over
his face - the sort of look that arises when
one knows one's been found out. 'I, I never
meant to suggest...' He began going on, and
I stopped listening. I realized at that
moment that most family matters are
bullshit anyway. No one knows
a god-damned thing.

880. THE WREN

THE WREN

The shy wren, singing.

My fingers, hurting and bent.

The laces of my shoes,

open and untied. So

much, together,

in one small place.

879. THE RAFT

THE RAFT
I am adrift. I am afloat on a sea of disapproval.
Disgruntled adults joined at the hips, children
too baffled to think. Past me, on the water's
flat surface, float layers of oily junk. The only
tools present are the new bludgeons of
both ignorance and delight. For
them, I am making a new
language indeed.

878. FOUNTAIN

FOUNTAIN

Well, I came here a wanderer and left just the same:

dazed, unfocused, without a rectification of means

or ends. High overhead, the red-tailed hawk has

just swooped - something monstrously graceful

to watch, though fiercely swift and sudden for the

poor baby squirrel. Enjoy the ride, my little brother!

He has taken you to Death!

-

Simply put, I sit around and watch what happens,

without a care for the value of the deed, or the

world. A powerful music courses my veins. Thick,

like the red-blood of certainty, or the slow molasses

of sureness. In there somewhere, because of that,

I sense some odd existential power I can never trace.

-

Maybe that is where the source of all things

comes from. A self-sustaining definition that

answers back to no one or nothing at all.

877. AS IF EVERYONE POPEYE

AS IF EVERYONE POPEYE
You can't make the transformation from the
railroad tracks to the superhighway by reading
magazines on the ferry, Captain. We all know that.
And I think, because of it, the entire world wilts.
-
The Sirens out on the Aegean - those august
things we read about but can never place -
their voices linger on the watery wind. I want not
to listen but do so anyway. I live. Time passes.
It's all a story I'm convinced, but not convinced of.
-
High overhead, while I sit at a roadside table, a
commercial jets tears the sky. Seemingly rugged, it
- right now - looks as delicate as a needle coursing
thread. I can almost hear each fiber pierced: a
sort of silent but lilting scream, like Nature itself
dying in a valley, or the Yellow River, undam'd,
breaking fierce once more over rock and land.

876. THE FRIENDS OF LIBERTY

THE FRIENDS OF LIBERTY
Amidst all sinister apparitions came forth this
day - preening like some peacock with plumage
bold and garish - to strut an obtrusive phase
across my silent, green lawn.
-
My reaction - instead of a selfsame nod or
one more yawn - was to run and hide to a
martial retreat, a frenzied trot, smoke flying
and horses wide-eyed; a Lafayette and a
Washington combined upon a revolutionary
field. All of this, and more, athwart some
frozen, lazy river, iced in by Winter's wrath.
Trentonians, even, perhaps but for a week
or two, my spirits acted as men bivouacked
now alongside a raging stream.
-
It cannot be : this Freedom was always too
torpid, like a Whitman indeed - splurging
homo sensitive greenbacks over baleful
young men, aiding the wounded and then.
"Urge and urge and urge; always the
procreant urge of the world...I effuse my
flesh in eddies and drift it in lazy jags."
-
What real difference, oh Sons of Liberty,
Daughters of the Revolution, what difference
does any of it make? What difference, in fact,
has it made? It's all in the sexual loins, these
meanings we seek for. I tell you, it's in the
loins indeed, for only there is Freedom's need.
-
So I wandered the glade, seeking the innocence
before it would fade. Though all had, by now,
been long gone. I carried through, I stumbled on.
-
'I hear the trained soprano. She convulses
me, like the climax of my love grip.'

*Walt Whitman

875. FRENZY

FRENZY
Pretend for a moment I am not me and
you are not you - what I am and what
you are. Eighth Street's old Jumble Shop
of course would have nothing on this -
a mass of apprehensions frothing over.
Mountains of transformations, appendages
not before heard of: Medusa heads of
our very own, with eyes for hands where
hands for eyes should be. (I tackle here
a shorthand with words even I cannot
fully understand).

*'An external object of any kind is an unsupportable abstraction.
In order to conceive the development of the world, in the service
of geology, let us say, we have to present it as it would have looked
had we, with our bodies and our nervous systems, been there to
see it. But to say that the world was as we describe it, a million
years ago, is a statement which overlooks the development of
mind. The nature of a rock, that is, depends on the nature of
the mind that observes it; we can assume that rocks were different
things a million years ago, because we assume that minds were
different as well.'

874. POLENTA MODERNE

POLENTA MODERNE
Would they have taken the half-life
of Eider and waltzed it away had he
been free? I rather think not. This
one-time, strange aplomb, nearly rare,
less than extinct but by a moment,
followed him down the corridor and
even out towards the gallows, post and
noose. And, incredibly, guards watched
as he side-stepped a puddle on the way
to his death. We, then, have nothing
more to show, nor hope for, on this
way past our own lingering lives.

873. WATERLOO AND GOD, FORTUNE AND VIETNAM

WATERLOO AND GOD,
FORTUNE AND VIETNAM
This beautiful late life on Earth:
I think that God is with me, waiting
on human things too. The curve of
that little, bared foot; that ripple of
indented skin and the pattern behind
the knee; the moist glisten of eyes.
A million other things as well, as wise.
We should not doubt for a moment the
presence of a greater sense, or this
little life on Earth imagined bears no
being. The watchful two - over there -
speaking quietly in their corner: pale
skin, quick chin, each detail formed
with care. An embodiment by another.

872. PARADOX

PARADOX
'The reader brings,
the writer sings.
Context is a factor
of a hundred things.'
They each have their little moments
at the side table where the dirge is
sung and oft repeated. One thousand
hands, bringing supplication to a small,
round, wooden table. I notice no man
stops for anything his quest. The small
votive light, as an incessant Buddha of
untanked desire, weems its flicker forward.
A highly polished marble presence remains -
'is Carrera marble ever used for floors?' - I wonder
to myself. The high loft-ceiling, arc'd, cantilevered,
whatever the terms this architecture uses, also
soars; like words of a prayer, like songs of praise.
Bird-high, lifted, wild, wide and witty. So many
things, falling together, that everything stays in place.

871. DEATH IS THE REMEDY ALL SINGERS DREAM OF

DEATH IS THE REMEDY
ALL SINGERS DREAM OF
Chloe and Simon both together.
They pace the floor like two mad
gendarmes on parade. 'Thinking
about leaving?' one says to the other.
'Oh, I have to. There are no choices left.'

870. DECLENSION 25

DECLENSION 25
Window glass strains the elements:
pictures distorted and we think that's
a bird - some thrush or a sparrow.
Can't see really, can't tell.
-
Fire-truck speeds by with that
city-blare so often heard: flames
or carnage or trouble somewhere.
Window glass strains the elements here.
-
A bus-load of prisoners seen turning
towards the Tombs: dark green bus,
windows wired before glum, dark
faces within. Time does its time,
yet time never wins.

869. MIRROR

MIRROR
I may once have been you; I cannot say.
That reflection within you, it won't go away.
-
Of what use is all this philandering possession?
Why do you hold this God-forsaken image
so fast? It moves, I think I see, only as I
do, or in its opposite, perhaps. Really, too
confusing to even hold my interest.
Were I to exercise my choices, I'd
have them out on you - you'd be
gone like the lemon icing on
someone's classroom cake.
-
There is very little wonder to this world.
What images do appear, find their reasons,
linger awhile, and - fatefully - do disappear.

868. CONFESSION

CONFESSION
There was a fire on the edge of the fire, the sort
of complication no one ever wants. A doubling of
intention, a twisted-twice force of trouble and ruin.
Small craft were falling from the sky, but, no, not
really. They were dropping trails of water or something,
and as the wet-trail fell, before dispersing, it almost
looked solid. I was a witness to this, but never
wanted to tell the story. That meant a reluctance
to talk to authority, and a really glum view
of the world. I'm quite comfortable
with all that, as such, the way
of the world.