964. WATCHING MR. MOTO

WATCHING MR. MOTO
('this is Poetry?')
No forks in the house, just pails and pails
of food and all they do is eat with sticks,
or shovels. Cheesiest Chinamen I ever saw.
No, no, can't say that : fondest coterie of
Asian cats ever seen (how's that?).
You know how when someone reads
the newspaper upside down you know
they're faking for sure and probably
can't read a word? Well, that's exactly
how I feel. The sunrise is already later
by like ten minutes a day, and it's the
final day of June. What's with that?
Backsliding already - damned solar system
tilt and twist and spin. Mandarin characters
and a calendar upon the wall. Faded
watercolor of some highland falls
and jasmine, pines, or something.
What do I know? High above, a
dove flies. I'm not sure if this is
real life or just some watery
calendar etching with the
year already out of date.
Mr. Moto? Poetry?

963. BY THE TIME I GET THROUGH WAITING

BY THE TIME I GET THROUGH
WAITING, I'LL HAVE GOTTEN
THROUGH THE WAIT
And it's really most unlikely anyway :
you and I, together, waltzing through
that seaside graveyard looking for
Revolutionary War soldiers, buried
there from the Battle of Monmouth.
We're holding drinks and a sandwich
in our hands. Eating amidst the rubble
of Death is disconcerting, to say the least.
I remembered something from Wordsworth
or Longfellow, or one of those old tyrants
who took pen to paper and memorialized
stuff like this. How no one dies in vain but
for the memory of lost love, or mother, or
the land so dear. How the natives, like
Hiawatha bereaved, still clamor for vision
through the woods and the trees, The silence,
I remarked, is deafening. The sunlight shakes
through the Heavens like holy water leaking sacred
from some Papist pail. There's nothing past elation
to keep the mind at bay. I watch a nearby limb as
it slowly leaks its sap - torn from the bark, but
still connected, it yet hangs. Everyone else, save us,
is dead; the tree limb, by contrast, exists now
somewhere between these two quite different states.
I accede to the demand, and decide to live on.
The Revolutionary War is over and, ever at
rest, all these soldiers are calm.

962. THIS JUST IN

THIS JUST IN
'They took our documents at the border,
stripped us bare and made us lie down in the
marsh. There must have been maybe 70 of us.
I think I alone survived. One after the other, they
took us away and then, as I said, made us
head for the marsh - we were all crouched and
scrunched together, and then - somehow - they
just began firing. The sounds were horrible -
gunfire, screams, groans and grunts.
Then it grew, very slowly, silent.
I guess I survived by being
under everyone else, and -
though they tried to check -
no one found me alive,
until you did.'

961. ALTAMARINE : BAD WEATHER

ALTAMARINE : BAD WEATHER
Bam! Bam! Don't do me there! Let it horrid
pass me by! I genuflect with my only hand,
but it always seems that no one notices.
-
The sign says in 1823 there were over forty
people living here - a sawmill and a mission post,
together. I can hardly believe it myself. All that
visceral work, and so few female delights.
No families, apparently, were ever formed;
which makes me damned suspicious.
(Bam! Bam! Don't do me there!).
-
An overland stage went weekly from
here to Freehold and back. That same leathery
parchment tells me that, in Freehold, there
was ample provision for ribaldry, and
even a bordello. People used to say, 'boys
will be boys' and all that crap. I don't
hear that much anymore. Everything
now is so sensitive and caring.
Bam! Bam! Don't do me there!
-
Nothing makes sense anymore.
In the tiny graveyard on my right,
the sign says, all those original
millers are buried.
-
(But it always seems that no one notices).

960. WHEN THE MORNING PARADE COMES KNOCKING

WHEN THE MORNING
PARADE COMES KNOCKING
'What did you have in mind?' I heard her ask, playfully.
'Setting the moon on fire, destroying the rays of the sun,
whitening the sky of morning with justice, cutting off
fame at the knees. Is that a good enough answer for you?'
And then the funny man with the summer hat and
the owlish glasses came over and - holding his
scavenger-hunt clipboard, said, 'Can you help me
with this clue, but don't tell anyone else? Whose
garden was looted for this hedgerow and trees?'
I answered, since I knew, and continued sitting down.
'George Washington's at Mount Vernon. The little
plaque that says so is right there, beneath that bush.'
I pointed about 30 feet away where, in fact, it was.
He bent down to peer, wrote down his answers,
and thanked me twice. 'All life should be that easy.'
I said that to her, but she was already gone.

959. BURKE VALLEJO

BURKE VALLEJO

I am a thief of character;

I am a character.

The toothache gave me a headache,

the headache reinforced the toothache.

I am the one in the shadows,

the one leaning forward into thin air.

I live outside the four walls you think you

see me in. I am enamored of nothing but

the little things that may interest me.

Once I was a trapper in the distant

fields afar, now I track vast dreams with

the smallest effort. These are all my marks.

I am the one performing without the net,

there, see me off to the side in

that old carnival shot -

traveled for years with that crowd.

Not a thing to show for it, nothing.

Drink your tea, and be quiet. Listen.

A woman like you can make me walk the plank.

I’ve had images in my head for five days straight –

the toll they take is the toll they make.

Sometimes, I try to remember the ‘Chamber of Horrors’

in that carnival show. It had an entrance clothed

in black curtain. The little cars took you around.

One day, I found a small man walking through there.

On foot. He came to me in the dark, and said:

"How do I get out of here?"

I remember thinking for a moment, after he startled me,

and then chuckling : "There’s only one way," I said.

"The way you came in is the same way out."

958. MARY CANTWELL LIVES FOREVER

MARY CANTWELL

LIVES FOREVER

I caught Barstom at the Rudder.

I swear he said the same about them all :

'I created a circus, and I ran away to join

it.' I guess that about sums it all up about

as good as any. I can't yet find the palace,

and I've certainly lost Mr. Mobius now.

Yet, somehow, the light never goes out

within, and Mary Cantwell lives forever.

-

I am oh so sorry for oh so many deaths,

and others I couldn't care about at all.

It is like that everywhere : mass graves

in the Balkans, frozen stiffs in St. Petersburg,

dead babies at the Baptismal fonts. I hate

the Ukraine as I hate the Danube - a

swilling marsh, a trashy highland, meandering

everywhere yet drained and channeled,

sides and angles and bridges to nowhere else.

My heart will always have a hand in love,

and Mary Cantwell lives forever.

957. CONSTRUCTION

CONSTRUCTION

('delight is a candle')
The tireless work of the construction
is done. The roadways are finished, the bridges
are in place. Now if they only had somewhere to go.
There are cows with fewer paths than this; meandering
over hill and dale, river to post, marsh and swamp
and back again. Now, if only I could juggle this fast.
-
I watch the land beneath my feet.
It ripples and rolls, shading this way
and that. Between us, we smile - the
entire world is seen this way, beneath
our feet, yet sovereign and sure.
I have nothing more to say.
This dog is, certainly,
set in his doghouse.
-
Delight is a candle - not to
a blind man, one who cannot see
at all, but for for someone as myself -
with blurring eyes in a hazy
half-light wherein the
candle really does
help.

956. THE WORK OF STRANGERS

THE WORK OF STRANGERS
(Ed Blackwell)
Jeremiad farthest reaches
longest day fevered nightmare
coastal skimmers. He's the one
with the magazine face, lost in the
junkyard and cleaning his gun. It
doesn't take much imagining to
see where this is going.
-
I sat back and wondered -
who played drums for Coltrane?
But as it went, the music played
on. The dimmest orange light had
just broken through the clouds - a
daybreak at some five forty-five a.m. -
and all it was was just behind my left
shoulder in an orange sky of delight and
fire. But now, and that, only for a moment.
-
Jeremiad farthest reaches and
who played drums for Coltrane?

955. JUST NOTHING THEY COULD DO

JUST NOTHING

THEY COULD DO
(a true story, related)
In republican centers you can never
find these two - the big one with the
yarmulke bragging about Israel, and
the little one with the torn boating shirt,
looking up, saying 'I don't know why
everyone's so down on them for raiding
that ship. I rather admire them for it.' Ah,
so the joyous homeland of the satisfied and
the sated! Yet, then, just as quickly, the
conversation changed, to someone's health,
or lack of it - death, in fact - always a
concern for these two when near the
register. 'His liver gave out. It just
gave out. I understand, at the end,
there was just nothing they
could do.'

954. ANY SEMBLANCE TO THE MARITIME ENDS RIGHT THERE

ANY SEMBLANCE TO

THE MARITIME

ENDS RIGHT THERE
They fall, they fall, they tumble:
arc'd omnivores dousing their strength
on the domino'd stumble of reason.
The thin boats slither in their gloss veneer -
here and there a sail, bending over, in the
constant of a breeze.We hail the moment to stop
to watch : stay, linger, remain. These are not
boats, but angels, true crafts of a Heaven
made of water with grace and light!
-
Well, it seems like that anyway...and then
come the rueful owners, fearful of their
monies and costs. They wipe old sweat
from newly formed brows. Vowing to
come back tomorrow.
-
On the trampoline nearby, I watch, as
over the fence from my gazebo by
the sea, two naked girls are romping
on the jumper, laughing as they fly.

953. IF

IF

If I can be made to be what I am

I'll be happy alone on this porch.

The red-wing blackbird at the Jimson

Weed - one equation together forever.

A life such as this would a prime number

be. I'd not need dancing or dining nor doubt

and decay. All your idle chitchat, I'd so

let you say. Your postcard from the

Poconos is there, on the floor.

-

I don't want the matter, but neither

does it matter what I want. Somehow, this

first day of Summer has no meaning at all.

A loudspeaker on the wall proclaims :

'Joltin' Joe has left and gone away.'

I almost no longer wish to listen. If

I can be made to be what I 'be',

I'll be happy alone on this porch.

952. IN CAT

IN CAT
Forty years and later, we are
walking backwards. That leaves
no room for memory - I see you
do agree, and nod. 'Why now?, and
why such short, snappy sentences?'
Saying that, the man with the mandible
cigarette tips his eyes and winces.

951. MEPHISTOPHELES RUNNING

MEPHISTOPHELES
RUNNING
Thin gauge railway running through the meadows,
carrying coal and straw and hay and people. Why?
Only for a gimmick, these days. That fare - used to be 35 cents -
now having risen to $5.55 makes little sense to me : one gets
the very same nothing for the very same ride. 'The old
Iron Bog Railway served an important role in its
day transporting raw goods and people to and from
their places of need.' I was, anyway, never sure
what that meant. Places of need? Places they
had to be? Places where they were needed?
Places that needed them? Places they
needed to be? Why not just say
destinations, and be done?
-
The hot sun above my head had to be
one hundred and ten degrees, and this
damned black train spewing sparks as heat.
I sure didn't need that. Then, only then,
I noticed - this lead car engine had a
name - there, weirdly inscribed on the
nameplate above the outside boiler :
Mephistopheles.

950. LOUDLY DAWNING

LOUDLY DAWNING
(ancient)
Like a crustacean just struggling to talk,
('it can't be don't, shan't be, won't'),
I meander through some shaded
glen thinking of nothing but past
motives. The tree indicates the wren,
the old, idle barnyard shows where
things once were. Down on its wheels,
the tired hayrick bears the scars of
many a wandering struggle through
fields and acres of grass. On the
side of the milk-room, the bent
pail still leaks. Everything takes
its form and nothing else speaks:
only the shape of things, wrapped
by light, casting hard shadows,
dwindling to a moment
before all things have
gone away.

949. McSEMPRIS

McSEMPRIS
Saturday found the derby hat wanting and the
dirigible long gone from the woodshed. He'd parked
the Franklin where all could see, but now there was
nothing but a crowd whizzing by - no one stopped even
to look. Two cats meowed by the awning. Down
on its luck, the broken turntable just spun. If
there had been time enough to paint the fence,
well, no one had done it after all. No matter.
They'd splatter - morons with toothbrushes
held in their teeth - anyway and the job
would never get done. Lilies of the Valley,
or somesuch painted flowers, seemed wild
all over the side of the barn. Nothing
but a view, like I'd never seen before.

948. A FURTHER GIRL

A FURTHER GIRL
The rowers and their voracious appetites
are out on the lake again : not swimming,
exactly, but rowing. Louisa May Alcott
says : 'Regards to Plato. Don't he
want new socks? Are his clothes
getting shiny?' I see the car with
the bumper sticker that reads 'Jesus
drives in the right-hand lane' has passed
me again. One last thing, a very minor
matter : The Great Wall of China, does it
end at the sea? Is that where I'd find
Puerto Rican Lasagna to be?

947. INELUCTABLE

INELUCTABLE
To the leering, dark and self-referencing
channels of Christianity and any of its
quirky adjuncts, I have no allegiance.
As such, the rebirths of 'Nature' as symbol
fed by pagan feasts usurped by an
anti- intellectualism of the sort that, say,
Easter is, cause me no pause but thanks.
Words may graze those feasts and stop
and drink. And too one hundred flowers
may bloom. Mankind? - as Auden said,
'to fresh defects he still must move.'

946. SCHNAPPS

SCHNAPPS
I didn't know what he was drinking, and the
way he talked I'd never. Know, that is.
'Gin and tonic' or 'skin and vomit.' Indeed!
What a tres-confusing perplexity aye! -
to be, and then some, so confused.
Why it, it made even me myself desirous
of a drink, y'see. Gin and tonic, skin
and vomit, Ginderomic, yes ! That's it!
I'll have now right off one of those!
A Ginderomic here sir, if you please!
And, oh dear, make it snappy. In fact,
well, yes, bring me too another glass,
and make is schnappy!

945. THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Has long since been superseded by lawn care,
medical professionals, bargain hunters and
big-box stores. The American revolution has
long since been superseded by stupid bankers,
beauty and nail palaces, sushi platters, California rolls
and new car lots run by salesmen in suits; electronic
stores and home remodelers and gardeners and landscapers
too. It has long ago been superseded by gas and oil
plazas, roadside restaurants, fast-food joints,
parking lots and highways, truck-fuel-oil-tankers
doggie-grooming emporiums beauty shops and mortuaries,
garbage-heap leftover dumps, day-care centers,
rancid schools, stadiums, theme parks, graveyards,
supermarkets and more so much more so very much.
Did I leave out churches and the village-square
gazebos where the decaying politicians still
make their horrid speeches with parades and horns?

944. MOREOVER

MOREOVER
Oldavai Gorge?
Was that the place?
Where Mankind started?
Discovery of the circle and the
square, the line and the wheel?
All that stuff? And only by an
art of such breathtaking simplicity
is the world made? Was the world made?
Where was the screen? Who filtered this
reality in, or then out? I can't say, do you see?
-
Let me get personal - as a little boy, I walked
the gaunt streets of Bayonne, looking at churches,
listening to my father tell me where and how
he lived. The place where his house once was -
'now gone?' I asked. 'Yes,' he said, 'now gone.'
I was surprised how little it mattered to me.
-
Old immigrant Italian soldiers, looking like
for all feast-days small Mussolini henchman
bent on enacting revenge : a stupid Italian
grudge killing, eye for eye, all that talk. I
heard it all forever, in language after language
until I was strangled by the ill-repute and the
stench of death itself.
-
As I grew older, I still wanted to know -
'who started all this stuff, and why?' No
one ever answered my catcalls or queries.
Now, they're all dead - their sickening vengeful
pride having delivered them from nothing, least
of all the grave. I guess they get flowers, though
I wouldn't know, never having visited one of their
graves. The old streets are all gone, just like them:
fedoras and toothpicks and ill-fitting suits.

943. MR. MONTPELIER

MR. MONTPELIER
Yes, yes, I've hanged the change-man
and changed the hangman. I've
put a new morality in place. Making
something from nothing has never been
as easy as this : looking beyond my shoulder,
and over the next hill, seeing what's coming
before it's due to come. I bow to no one, yet
the bowing's done. Now look at that!
The ring is on the other man's
hand again.
-
'Entering Marmaora, we were first all
puzzled by the size of things - either
over-ample or too small for humans.
Nothing in between. It was certainly a
strange place; and the noises we heard
were all repetitive and annoying.'
That's what I read exactly on the
old explorer's guest card.
-
Nothing is ever tuned to the
frequency you'd think.
As I saw it, (and so I
told him), the dumbest
ones get the loudest voices,
and vice-versa too.

942. NOTICE!

NOTICE!
(profligacy poem)
All changes must be clearly marked.
Tag label Sedlak marking barrier
blister clasp tape strapping.
Hand hold only. Do not bend.
Keep from heat. This side up.
Do not rest on edge. Packing
list enclosed. Surreptitious
drywall entry. Mark by hand.
Do not undo stenciling
All changes must be
M-A-R-K-E-D.

941. LIME HOUSE

LIME HOUSE
The sundered hands of
a broken slave. Bereave me.
Lime house. Root cellar.
Summer kitchen. Down
by where the water runs.
I ask nothing, and,
oh, oh, I take less.

940. HOW I LOVE THE GAME

HOW I LOVE
THE GAME
You make me shudder,
you make me weak.
Lie down in green pastures,
pump up the meek.
On the edge of the small,
stupid town (that is not, really),
the carnival has set up camp.
There for eight days, give or
take a few. The set-up guys
come first. Despicable crew -
stalwarts and trenchmouth boozers
and dopers. They encamp in
their campers and wagons and vans -
all tools and rigging and wires. They
sleep on the grass, they sleep in their
pants. These grizzled veterans of all,
sexmobiles and Ferris Wheels.
The whole, entire mess goes up.

939. DEATH IS NOT PART OF LIFE

DEATH IS NOT
PART OF LIFE
I walked Mr. Twain through his paces
and grew deadly tired at that. So much noise
and a wearisome toil . He once said to me,
'It's as if you got to find, well, something
to write about, just to keep going.' And
all that was well before Wittgenstein. I've
never been in battle, but I've worn
some armor old.
-
Those things, those dominoes set in
a row - you say they are people waiting
for the bus. I say no. Cadavers like that
can't move and they are stupid, blissed-out
kitchen workers talking swiftly in a tongue
from another land. They never stop - and
chatter and laughter I hate. Mexicali
Rose just got here, late.
-
The tall man, with the red bandanna,
I heard him say : 'There's no efficiency
like death; it comes straight at you, lurks
long, finds the lethal, and strikes.
Everything else should be so easy
but death is not part of Life.'

938. COMING UP FOR AIR

COMING UP FOR AIR
(Segal's)
It's not. Hardly. There's nothing there.
The old storefront in Easton, now long
gone. Some merchant name like a million
others - wedding clothes and balloons,
sunglasses and shoes, dress pants, beachware
and more. As the name is gone I can't remember
it. The building too is gone - and all I've got
is the photograph with the very stylized lettering.
A sign, signifying something. Myles, or Tep's,
or Siegal's. Yes, yes, oh that was it. How many
things just like that live on in the infamy of an
idle mind? Active? Encountered? Engaged?
Aye, there's the pun. I rub it in.
-
My only daughter, she's turned out to be
a mobster's wife, and what can I do?
Get killed because of what she's become?
I'll pass on that. She's snorting cocaine
in her living room right now, probably
lounging back in her panties and shirt -
his shirt - open down the front, unbuttoned
with nothing underneath. And the TV on,
loudly too. A mobster's wife, and
what can I do?
-
Trying to find a conference call :
fifteen popes talking to ten presidents,
dollars to donuts about nothing at all.
I can't speak the language, can't read
the tongue. I'm tying to find that
conference call.
-
Walt, pepper, grapefruit, onions and kale.
Men of so many other names - the girl
with the drum majorette, the ballerina costume
worn by the midget, she, the one on the
balustrade, she, the one of the pirouettes.
The old, old doctor with the black leather
bag. He walks in backward, and
leaves so sad.

937. THE GOOD MORNING OF THE BIG-LIPPED FISH

THE GOOD MORNING OF
THE BIG-LIPPED FISH
With everything all together, the man had
his hand in a fishlock, something like holding

onto a cat by the Simpson. The new-found
day was just crawling around the mission-post,
and the fat fellow with the cleaver was wielding
it close. 'On the first day of creation,' he was
thinking to himself, 'was it they made the water
or the sky?' He was damned if he could remember.
-
It sometimes seems it's always like that, a
mixed-up confusion, a Chevrolet when a
Cadillac was needed, or what you wanted
anyway. I remember the day I was too drunk
to drive. It was Memorial Day, about ten
years back. This girl drove my Lincoln home
for me, while I had to wobbly-walk. It was only
about a mile, I grant, but what the heck. She
was perturbed. When I finally arrived, there was
the car - but up on the curb. Just goes to show....
-
Seems there's an intention in Nature that's never
been met, or at least not yet. Leaves that whistle
in the wind, or make a rustling sound that you
can hear all through the night. A moonlight
that settles in eddies and coves. The dash of
the barn swallows, this way and that. In much
the same way, it was never my notion, intentionally
or not, to finish this life up with any semblance
of any good sense. But then, the intentions
in Nature are never that dense.
-
Danse macabre? Dance of Death?
Morbid jig-reel, square-dance met?
I went, just last week, to a fortune-teller's
wedding. In acknowledging my presence,
she said - 'In your future I'm willing to bet,
and I hope you're ready. I see death and
darkness and sadness; I see everything
except a beheading.' Needless to say,
that was some kind of wedding.
　

936. NASSAU HALL

NASSAU HALL
I am in a place where even the gardeners
are complaining about their work. It's a hard deal -
to have to listen - short, sudden words : 'now, time,
not mine, won't, damn.' The black squirrel, an
ostensible beneficiary of their work, stares on,
watching the men. Not just another awful day, please.
-
I look on as well, straight ahead as
if I don't know. A wonderful star-sparrow
breaks through the light. I am smiling again.
-
Ajar, the door, and both the books are open.
We wish where Washington walked - quelling
that magnificent, mythological beast within us.
Revolutionary, after all, not just some foppish
ungenerous lad. I can't be all I want to be -
and that (I note) can make me sad.
-
Nassau Hall is not my home. It now dimly bespeaks
to me of other horrors - once, on these quaint old
Indian lands. We concentrate now on newer ideas
- of which the many I want to say 'Ideals' - carnage,
native blood, a violent usurpation, dispossession,
brookside assaults, murder, bounty, battle and death.
I can't not think, I think to myself.
-
I look on, straight ahead, as if I don't know.
A wonderful star-sparrow breaks through
the light. I am smiling again.

935. OUT THE KENDRICK

OUT THE KENDRICK
Miscreants are bereaved and
beavers are lost. Ideas are like
honey and pathos is vapid.
I like things like this :
suspenders in the window,
new lighting along the edge,
drawn drapes to keep the
light IN, not out. A solemn,
mellow sort of religion to
usher in the new music.
-
Had I not turned around, just then,
that steamrolling truck, headed
straight for me, would have never
been seen. Would I have written
my memoirs about that? I wonder.

934. A COUNTRIFIED GENOCIDE

A COUNTRIFIED GENOCIDE

Some people like their eggs and bacon,

tea in the morning, biscuits and chicken.

All that vilified crap. That went out long

long ago. Boxcars lined up on some old

Auschwitz steel, Italian guys with carabinieri

guns jamming the barrels down their own

throats and firing. Death as a sideshow :

Hungary, Poland, Russia, France; all

those postcard places. I was reading just

today an old Le Monde about the progress

the tanks have made. Trespassing fences

and trenches, no fortifications seem strong

enough to hold. Some King Alphonse tried

that once - maiming all the horses and

15,000 men in some weakened attempt

to gain a few thousand feet. It all went down

so badly - 'jes' like there t'weren't no one

home.' Jethro Mawther said that, chewing

tobacco, as we sat in the front of his ratty

old Mercury. Oh Jesus, some situation for

the ages, for sure. Eighteen dead men

on a barbed-wire fence.

933. IMPERIAL MEANDER (false bottom blues)

IMPERIAL MEANDER
'De King, He don't know nothin'!
And about nothin' that is too!'
Porphyry in Akron Hart Crane
dirigible Life Savers candy heart
matter. I swell to follow your
punching bag - only once
my bulging heart.
-
Here are my notes for your reaction:
I was born not once but twice.
The first time was Bayonne, NJ.
I was born beneath the Bayonne Bridge.
I had no mother and no father neither -
and only once the bridal heap took
something off the top to make me.
Make me wince - come-shot sperm
dribble overflow jism rumble rhythm.
Two gangsta' hoodlums crazy in lust.
If you can't find your mother, than
who do you trust?
-
Second time around I was a'risen from
the dead - a second-tier mulatto bent
and twisted. They uttered last rites
over my head - and extreme unction
was my function. But I showed them.
Excommunicated. Nicely Expurgated.
Some new soul just risen from the dead.
-
'De King, He know nothin'!
'Bout nothin' neither!'

932. THE HOLY LAND CRUSTACEAN

THE HOLY LAND CRUSTACEAN
Five fingers to a glove, one wrist to a hand;
we make our meek allegiances...whatever
that old line was. I simply forget. Standing
by a rainy window, crusted with grime, the
old dirt tracks down the glass as I watch.
I feel like a feeble refugee, eating mashed
crackers in some mushy tea. The sort
of stuff they feed prisoners in a Gulag, in
shirts with no sleeves and beanie hats
fat atop their shaved heads.
-
If I ever had a woman, I'm sure - even
that long ago - that I'd remember. As it
is, this rat-infested cubicle with yellow light
and shit in the toilet has been my home,
prescribed by some sickening judge,
for six long years already. Sixteen
more to go, the paper said. I used
it, way back when, to wipe my ass.
-
I don't have the willpower to watch even
the sand slide down through the pinhole.
There's nothing on my wall to watch,
even if I'd ever wanted to. I wish
there was a woman to clean
my face.

931. RIMBAUD IN TRANSLATION

RIMBAUD IN TRANSLATION
I don't have the muscle to do you in,
I couldn't muster the energy to slit you.
All I can do, actually, is listen some more to
your bullshit lines : jumping cadavers and
toasters that barf, thousand dollar pants
and handholds of gold. Preposterous horseshit,
all. But, here I sit, taking it in. I shan't leave.
I won't get up. Gun-running fucked-up young
bastard that you are, I'll outlast you waiting in
the line to Hell. Watch the window, shade your
face. Look towards the skylight once more.

930. SO AT THE GRAVE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT

SO AT THE GRAVE OF
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Braverman, walking southward,
opening arms to winsome trouble:
a highland voice like a bird, a
sound like unto nothing else, e'er.
Procure the water for the goblet,
do. I hear the distant ladies singing -
an oh-high warbling voice, so
far, far, far away.

929. IT BEARS NO MEANING

IT BEARS NO
MEANING TODAY
My sheen entabulature - an
irrevocable echo between caves
and walls sundered by doubt and
left open. I am not at home. I
am away. I travel about. If
they play 'Shenandoah' once more,
I swear I shall scream.

928. JEW GODDESS

JEW GODDESS
(jewels and money)
The key is set and all the women
are dead. Now you've gone and done it.
Once there was a huge field of sunflowers
running high alongside the roadway -
all now nothing but a miserable pavement
and a parking lot with lines. And they burned
the farmhouse for good measure. Why do we
have to live this way? That corner of Hell, where
the developer lives? He will live right there forever.

927. MONEY MATTERS

MONEY MATTERS
The Gedze and the Orshards,
the Cubullais and the Wyants,
they are all, by decree, rich styles
of pottery. My spare change collects
them. Museum pieces, with a shed
in which to store them. Glass showcases
indoors, with thick, lustrous carpets
where inquisitive people walk. No
matter what we ever do, we are
mere shadows of our former selves,
and each moment makes us less.
-
I have a Butler, named Tendon, who
takes care of these matters : my museum
attendant, me helper, my go-fer, my star.
His daughter too, Carolina, I support;
giving them both housing and food.
It is, all in all, a wonderful arrangement
full around - they are secure, I am secure,
and - mostly - problems are never found.
-
Look at the sun going down over my
western pond. Isn't it a lovely sight?

926. PLAYLIST

PLAYLIST
Gone run down stark-raving crazy
now you are was then I me. Got stopped
[just we that] when the message came.
To bear witness, I speak. I speak
as a survivor lost amongst survivors,
each and all of whom thought to swear
they too were last. So, so we are all not
then alone. So what?
-
'We can't be silent! We must give evidence!
My God, we have been witness!' - such
Jakob, worked up, said. And [yet] I said
nothing in return. The conclusion [they said]
was: 'we've got to face the facts, we've got
to know what happened.' [I said]: 'Don't you
know?' [They said]: 'Well...yes....and no.'
-
It's never been easy being Sam Sham.
Though they try : run down stark raving crazy.
('Why don't you come down for ransom?
I've heard you like the kids').