1016. SPOFFORD 104

SPOFFORD 104
Can anyone hear me? Does anyone? The lackey
wind throwing the morning about, the mark of
sunlight straddling a horizon or two, the
sound of many motors purring - each of these
things in their minor way make more of
a racket than I ever can. I visit the dead man's
funeral thinking I will hear his sound. But - just
as for myself - no sound comes forth. Now who
can hear that? By definition, is not the world silent?
-
Otherwise, should we not hear the sizzle of the Sun
as it overtakes our places; the broadness of its
yellow light, flaming and pulsing our matter?
That would be sound for all time : the grim
and lofty noise eternity makes. Compared
to that, we are the spittle of an angry
demon's jaw, worth nothing in
the end but our aging,
and our death.

1015. TWENTY-TWO MILES HOME

TWENTY-TWO

MILES HOME
I went there, I wasn't there.
Nothing like a rim shot to make
things fair - watch me as I swizzle.
You sat next to me as I sat near to
you; starlight, starbright, first star
I see tonight. There's only three more
('and that ain't right'). Multiply the
multiplier. Fetch the pail, the barn's afire.
And I wouldn't have it any other way.
-
I walk the city street in some very early
light - everything that's open should be
closed. Those that are open, shouldn't
they doze? Over on the corner, high atop
the sign that reads 'Schirmer's', a single
hawk gazes alertly - as if something,
anything, to move would be his.
A few places are lined up in
a row. Seems as if it's
been this way forever.
-
I was walking three days straight,
stopping wherever I liked, sleeping
on grass and in parks overnight.
It wasn't easy, but I made it right.
Twenty-two miles home tonight.

1014. THE YELLOW HOUSE

THE YELLOW HOUSE
Dunning the hive while shouldering
my hi-hats, I cut the icing in your eyes
with the knife my heart was holding.
The time-told story was again unfolding:
how the wily man, heartbroken, runs to
re-exchange the past with the now; idle
threats of no value at all. 'If I had it to
do once over again...' and all the rest
that goes with the running.
-
I stayed back. The two dark animals
on the south-facing lawn seemed chasing
each other in a trance-like folly. One
chattered - a noise I'd not heard before
or since - and the other, silently dodging,
kept going around in circles. I wondered
to myself which one I'd be if, Heaven
allowing, I'd had the choice.
-
Doorscape and sunlight - reflected
back on the shaded glass. The small
distance, shown in the nearby mirror,
now seemed - really - like nothing at all.

1013. THE HAMMER

THE HAMMER
Like leaden gold, it came down hard,
all the chariots and fires and angels.
No one said a word as, after all, the
entire thing took but a minute.

1012. IT IS STILL UNKNOWN WHAT ANYTHING MEANS

IT IS STILL UNKNOWN
WHAT ANYTHING MEANS
Fuzzy, starry sky I cannot see you.
Too far for sense and logic, I suppose.
The deep distances make your
yesterday-light both waver and hide.
Everything new is old outside.

1011. ALIGNED BY THUNDER

ALIGNED BY THUNDER
( a recitation on 'curiosity')
It's a tough place being between two bridges -
relying on one for support and the other for
egress, escape and flight while the disenchantment
rolls on - all around my face are lethal chameleons
and people from far stranger places than this one.
I can only hesitate as the water flows and the pure milk
seeps. Windchimes play fallow, broken by wind.
The watermill on Heathercote Lane lays sideways
in the marsh - all chains broken, the pump long gone,
and fifteen forlorn soldiers milling about. A
single matron lurks. Her name is Sheila May Abrams
and I used to know her brother. Now the rumbling sky
abruptly splits, thunder roils above our heads and
rainclouds and lightning together do their work.
Neighborhood kids come by hooting. They
somehow think we're lovers now caught
in a clutch. They begin throwing pebbles
our way. We let it all go and move on.
There can't be any more desirous
desire than this insidious waste.
Fifty states in one big
country and here
I am right here.
Nonchalance,
was it, that
killed the
cat?

1010. WHEN PICASSO LIED

WHEN PICASSO LIED
(Horto de Ebro, 1909)
He spoke of nothing, not even trees.
Barren forms and shapes, shaded areas
of cube and angle, the volume of objects
all giving way. Look! Look! Just have
your eyes fall into that gaping hole.
'Houses on the Hill' with that crazy
center shape : promiscuous void, gaping hole,
thin and narrow opening, entry to a Hell.
I shan't (before I try) ever look away.
Picasso lied; and that's all he had to say.

1009. THE SUICIDE GIFT (Reverie)

THE SUICIDE GIFT
(Reverie)
The man is writing his sixteenth note,
and this time - (he says) - it is complete
and final. 'The recognition of things,
the lucid recognition, is important to me.
Happiness is an escape from time, human
time, either through a life after death, or
before death - perhaps - through an
experience of spiritual communion, love,
or aesthetic transport. A third way,
mythology attests, is to die and
come back to life. This is the meaning,
in the western world, of the descent
to the underworld - from
Iannana to Dante both.'
-
But you can't come back from that.
Creation from 'Nothing' is bunk, at
least, after the first. Only one chance,
and I've found (oh, myself) that the
corridors of time are filled with echoes
and memory; and maybe I like to go there.
-
I see no one else with a hand in this
morning's pink light on the tall, green trees.
And, if I did, my own grand darkness
would narrow my choices. I sit
in this chair, doing nothing. Knowing
it all, backwards. I hardly have to
move. Move along. Get.
Get along. Little doggie.
Get along. And, so, again,
I wonder. to myself, is
that a reverie?

1008. WERE I TO SET A STONE FOR YOU, WOULD I A JEWELER BE?

WERE I TO SET A STONE FOR
YOU, WOULD I A JEWELER BE?
Were I to set a stone for you, would I
a jeweler be? Greylock. Redstone.
Cellar entrance. Green bush and chair.
Trellis and black door. The Grand Vizier,
I once knew him in a place like this. And
I'd seen him often. But now all that is
gone, and we must do something.
-
My sickening inventory, of time and matter
all. I grab it up and stick it to myself like
a foul attendant at an accountant's wake.
Waves are lapping the dew. I bow down
and grab a handful of dirt.
-
The tiniest bugs there are are crawling
between my fingers. They've come out
of that dirt. They crawl onto the morning
table, where no one but me sits. It's easy
to dismiss Love when you've got nothing
to live for - as easy as it is to dismiss Life
when you've no one to love. They say nothing
can come from nothing; but the Universe,
in spite of that, tells a different tale
(and I really want to listen).
-
It's at moments like this when I know I am
failing. The blind man in the art museum,
damn, even he sees more than me. I am
a makeshift enemy of all - everything -
around me. Larkspur. Sparrow. Tree limb.
Awning and shutter. Bench on the dirt and
that bicycle wheel tied to a tree. Were I to
set a stone for you, would I a jeweler be?

1007. SOMETIMES

SOMETIMES
Sometimes, like this, I am sitting alone.
It is 6am, it is 7. Truly, I have nowhere
to go. The semblance of a July light
hits my soul like a rock and I reel -
back a bit, over to the side. Farther off,
a man is whistling, and an emergency siren
too is heard. But for a moment, both.
For these are but enticing passes, the
human load, the moment. I watch
the bricks as they catch the light.
Quiet and soulful it seems, in a way,
sad. I can no longer dissemble. No
sense why I'm here, and no reason
to be. Maybe in a cloak of madness
the madness is grabbing me. But,
no matter; this garden setting
still holds my heart.

1006. THE RED DOT MEANS YOU ARE HERE

THE RED DOT MEANS
'YOU ARE HERE'
The red dot means you are here.
If that suffices, then let it.
There! You are, can be, will be.
'Accept your lot in life,' the
old miser said. Now, that does
NOT (necessarily) mean suddenly,
for such acceptance can take a
very long time. Something (well,
I'm stretching the point here), perhaps
like a virginal penetration or a long,
slow lovemaking.
-NOW-
'Why I hate other people,' - you see,
could just as well be a statement that
leads you into the whys, or it could be
(just as well) a simple exclamation, like
something an old Marx Brothers routine
would have : ('Why I hate other
people indeed!).
-SO-
It really doesn't matter if the
red dot means, say, 'You Are Here.'
Accept it. You are wherever you
want to be, and only that is good.

1005. TO MAINTAIN

TO MAINTAIN
(DIA Beacon)
There is (then) a point where the line
does not (any longer) exist - it is a marker -
an indicator really. With no life of its own,
on its color field you can stare. You will;
the variety of visual experience in tatters.
Yes, the mind will blow like a natural thing,
and as such it is to be expected. Yet,
grounded in tobacco smoke and lucre,
nothing past trite will have been achieved.
The art world, after all, keeps its own
conditions, biding time for time to pass.
Rectangle, square, a perfect edge or not,
The whole and entire world - forever -
is but a vast conjecture. Can be.
Would be. Should.

1004. A TRUE FEAST OF DURANGO

A TRUE FEAST OF DURANGO
I would have to swear - in a court of law,
I guess - that, yes, I watched the two murderers
as they jumped to the other rooftop. Those
wooden-front buildings here in town, they
each have that false height, that sort of
fake facade with nothing behind it, really,
but a flat roof; easy as it is to jump from
one to the other. Those two men right there,
I saw them do it, just after the shots rang out.
Their faces were covered with cloth - at least
their mouths and noses and chins. But I knew
who they were - Delgado there and Swainey too.
They killed those men and ran. The money and
the jewelry is in the wagon. They had accomplices
run off with that in the ensuing frenzy. Frenzy, hell,
pandemonium. Even the bar room emptied out,
and that doesn't happen here much.

1003. ULTERIOR MOTIVATIONS

ULTERIOR MOTIVATIONS
(What IS the matter?)
This is not Nature; these are not 'things.' Instead, all
of this is solid matter, forms and shapes; colors befitting
a king. Volumes and planes, the witty forms of all
Creation - never batting an eye, never blinking.
But, yes, all eventually returns to its elementals
and roots. I was taking the toil to heart, all that
work and so little play - you know the rest.
-
Watching those Lakewood boyhood Jews with
all their pretty girls made me uncomfortable
in a circumstantial way : the boarded up
motel along Route 9 - some huge worldly
palace, incongruous and now gone, amidst
all that religious puffery. Prayer shawls and
those crazy hats. The women, with that
certain blessed dignity, trudging past ruin.
-
Ravens, vultures, those careening skyward
creatures - all Heaven sent to hawk the
burial yards. Convenience stores in the
most inconvenient places. Old churches,
left out in the rain to rot. Three Hasids,
somehow looming past me, in their big
Buick Electra, outrageously out-dated
but running as well; smooth and
easy. They stared out the window
as they drove me by. I, it was
thought, should be looking
at them. No?
-
Life is a minefield of a million different
things. We walk, we cavort, we sing.
With stories of family, or the tribe
we came in with; it's all the
religion we bring, (though
chosen by a committee
specific to us).

1002. YOU'RE NEVER GETTING HIM BACK

YOU'RE NEVER

GETTING HIM BACK
My father had a father whose brother
was 'lost in the Yankee War.' That's the
way he always phrased, and I was never
sure. Sports? A baseball murder?
A form of New England play?
-
He meant, apparently, the Ardennes
Forest, but with a 10th grade education
what was to be expected? Little else.
The Yankee War would have to do -
especially since, in 5th grade myself,
I learned the Civil War wouldn't fit,
since 'Grandpa' was born in 1876.
-
Damned if I ever got to the bottom
of all that. My mother would just
say - 'Yes, whatever, he's gone
and you're not getting him back.'
That, too, was so disconcerting -
like they did it for spite, and
knew I was hurting.

1001. ANABASIS

ANABASIS
This is the end of everything I've ever known:
They put my face in a leather pail, ratcheted
my arms with some form of winch. Pressed
hard where my eyes set in. I screamed
bloody murder. Privately, of course
I was laughing all the time.
-
The first guy, some Slovakian Neanderthal
with teeth like coins, spit in my face
unwittingly while trying to talk. He
meant to be saying something
horrid, but couldn't manage
to even breathe. Any
soliloquy needs
breath capacity.
-
So he was a shit, but I knew
that already. The next guy -
'Coutrona' - said my sister
was his lover and my
mother was his slave.
Oooh!, so bad was
that! I laughed
again.
-
That's when my lights went out.
I think, dear God, they were
beating my head with a pipe.
Pain necessitates a future.
At the moment, I really
had none. It was over
in a flash, and
here I am.
　

1000. VETERAN APOSTASY AND A BOAST

VETERAN APOSTASY
AND A BOAST
(a summing up)
The figure is the segment of what we have done
- no more, no less. Invariably, just thinking this
over brings a shudder. On the side of the road at
Oakdale, I see there's a police car hiding out.
Where is it that police hide? In their minds?
Anywhere? Places not yet created? Or not
yet 'violated'? That cop, I know, goes home
at night to something. Such as is, has to be.
-
My hands, on the wheel (let's say) grasp.
Difficult word, that, since so many of us
grasp, in effect, nothing at all. All that
is - before we pass - is hiding out, not
letting us see. And then, in some stealth,
we arrive - fresh-dead meat for all to see.
-
My time in the hostel was filled with maneuvers;
as many as a sport allows - the feint and the dodge,
the aversion, the waver. Yet, as solid as - say - cows,
the force-field of logic became like a wall, made of
glass perhaps but a wall nonetheless. People would
hit it and fall. Tensile strength? That they really meant.
-
'You can beat me, you can pummel.
I can take the bruise,
ain't no Beau Brummel.'

999. HARD SCRAP/EDGE

HARD SCRAP/ EDGE
Won't want the ticket agent
the man with the spyglass
see me NO!
No.
-

See how that figures -

all 'runned' away!
Now is the
moment,

oh Sally
to say.

See!
-
Carmelite.
Crazy fixture.
Dauntless foe.
How far the distance
does the distance go?
Go!
-
Medicine man
Mendocino, man!
Man!

998. HOW THAT MIRACLE RESCUE SAVES

HOW THAT MIRACLE

RESCUE SAVES
I've read all that I could about tendencies like
this : the Hart Crane delirium at the end of a
boat, the errant Moldavite staggering on shore,
the greedy man from Menker's, looking
at lucre each step of the way.
-
It's nothing different, really, from Death itself.
Nice in a glimmer, then the lights go out.
Someone yells 'Save him!' while fleeing
in the other direction. Confetti floats down
from some weird ticker-tape of a broken mind.
-
How many notes this clown has left behind!
For myself, I'm tired of reading them; they
fade and waver like a sophomore flag
at a really bad halftime. Ask him,
over there, the midget selling
ice cream. See what he says.
In the end, all that matters
is that it's over.

997. I WILL SIT FOR SURE

I WILL SIT FOR SURE
I will sit for sure in the
farthest seat away.
No sunlight, no rain
can reach me. Acres of
green will cover me.
No one's eyes will see.
-
I will sit for sure
in the farthest seat away.
Between architecture of
other ages, and lights
of just today.

996. TO TAKE AIM

TO TAKE AIM
To take aim, first depart.
Go far away, flee, run.
To take aim, first,
do not look.
-
To take aim, first find delight
and revel in it, running forward
towards something you like.
To take aim, find the
source, find the light.
-
To take aim, put the book away
and watch - see the shadows
move, watch the tree in rustle.
To take aim - first! - stand still,
do not move a muscle.

995. HOW ONE HEALS (Calico Loom)

HOW ONE HEALS

(Calico Loom)

You can put a finger in a sling, an arm in a cast,

be treated form all forms of plague. Like ribald

crusaders, back from that wicked joust, things

in slings and jacketed bones matter little. You

have done your work for the Lord.

-

All those Civil War guys, splattered like nickels

over the untidy field - they die and they bloat,

the stay in place, moaning and hurt, until they

expire. Nothing to be done. Prisoners have been

taken, the most rebellious of them, of course,

murdered. That twisty fellow, over there, in

the cape, why it's either Walt Whitman or some

fault-ridden parson out on a lark. You can heal

the dead too, you know, with prayer.

-

Calico Loom, on the Perdasa Creek, below the rocks

at Edenburg. That's where my neighbor's forebear

died - he says. In 1863, neglected and drained. I

never believed him, and still don't, for one second.

He made that all up - claiming a Loom lineage,

somehow, by connecting himself with the person -

so far back - who happened to share a name.

-

For some people, that in itself is how they heal.

The wounds are so great that they themselves

reach and try for something other than what

they are : 'prairie grass, blazing, on fire, consumed

my family's farm; my Uncle Wallace, in Chesterton,

he would have discovered the quark, but the

established cabal wouldn't let him speak. Until

they had it out first.' It's like that everywhere.

-

This jacket doesn't fit. My chest is too big.

994. BASTARD

'BASTARD'
In order to be considered one, you have to earn
it - nasty, vituperative crank, old vile skunk,
sniping varmint, curmudgeon. Something
no one likes. All that and more, rolled in
one ball. 'That stinking old grouch never
looks back, unrolls his sleeves just to
spit on your face. Son of a bitch, he is.'
-
The weather was running like Evil.
I was bent over in the yard, in
some obvious pain - chest
upheaval, tired breathing,
a hard pounding in the head.
Down on the ground, I
tried to get up. Nothing.
-
When they came, finally, to
get me, they said: 'From
what we'd heard, you was
already dead. Consider
yourself lucky, you
ungrateful son of
a bitch.'

993. REASONING

REASONING
The dim roaring rise of arc and cable,
wire and steel, that sorted-out fan of
mathematics and drawing ; some form of
new precision landing on land yet soaring.
I want to follow with my eyes, yet glumly
my own feet stick here, on the ground.
What my eyes can see is only a tease,
for my feet and limbs do not follow.
-
It's been said 'how like in joy do
birds fly.' I wonder. They soar
as only they can.

992. '...DEPICTION OF RESTRICTION'

THE DESCRIPTION OF YOUR
PRESCRIPTION WOULD BE
A DEPICTION OF
RESTRICTION
And then the Winter came, and
we had forgotten how to live.
Ice on the landings, water, frozen,
in buckets beneath the porch. That
thin yellow bulb on the 2nd floor landing,
weak and cold and shallow, throwing no
shadows at all. We'd all thinned to nothing,
emaciated faces, hungry, with no money to
spare or share. Any handout was ours alone.
-
Before long, the crazy snows came : stuck inside,
as if we could not move, we were beggared by
the cold - a lack of warmth, little to burn, and
a scowling mutt all adding to the woe.
-
I tried to save, just once, the situation by
bringing a man upstairs - some creepy black
gay guy willing to pay. It was all ass-backwards.
over top of this and that. Yet, working it all out
together, we'd gathered 35 bucks. Jesus,
remember how much that meant?
-
Those days are long away now.
'Harold the Key', as we called him,
is dead five years already, and you've
done your time in jail. Me? I've got nothing
to show but these notebooks, and some
pictures of that old gray garage.
Apparently, no one wants them
now. 'Worthless', is all I
hear anyone say.

991. HIM WHO

HIM WHO
Him who tracking me tries,
finds nothing. You see, I
am already gone.

990. FOUND OBJECT

FOUND OBJECT
In the toilet art museum fauve-colored
windows all that they seem.
No one ever ventured in, making now
silence a cardinal sin.
Homo Faber. Man the Maker.
Again and again.
-
I boarded with Max Frisch
in Berlin; he made airplane
tires out of German
cellophane. Maersk.
Farben. All
that crazy
stuff.

989. SHAKESPEARE'S LATE SYNTAX

SHAKESPEARE'S LATE SYNTAX

(sin tax)

'Fie! Ye wouldst dun me

for the life-joys within this

clothing of my days? My

smoke and my wine ye would

deign to tax? Attach this,

ye foulest swine! Ye joyless

dead soul of such ordinary time!'

988. GERALD R. WOLFF

GERALD R. WOLFF
'That's a fair pen you're holding in your hand,
Gerald - one already long-bitten with lice
and mites and the shaded moss of long ago -
you make me shudder, just thinking of now.'
-
No constable holding keys and a warrant
can apprehend this fever. I am hot with
love and lust for words : as the real cabinet
of Dr. Caligari would show - 'I opened
that cabinet and out came the future like flame.'
-
In this broad and fussy room, the shelves
are lined with books as - along the wide
wooden table - the lawyers all sit; their
briefcases and hats too, as if it were 1956
instead of now. I am flummoxed by their
talk, and in walks Gerald R. Wolff again.
-
'We have here a 7.2 million dollar disbursement
all ready to be dispensed. If you would simply
signify here, it will be given over to you on the 30th
day past this date, at 10:30am. It may be transferred
electronically, or, of course, (yes, we know your ways),
you are welcome to arrange for yourself to pick up the
check in Philadelphia, at Ashford, Mays & Scheinbaum.'
-
'Mr. Wolff, I 'signify'? You mean 'sign'? If that's
all it is, I'll do so, yes - and, yes again, I'll
see you in Philadelphia 30 days from now.'
-
If I were to buy some acres of the deepest forest,
I'd still get out alive. There would be neither toil
nor shame for me to cover with this feat. We
wear the arms, after all, to which we were given.
There is not really, anywhere, a helpless man.

987. SONYATINA

SONYATINA
'I'm going to teach children how to read music,
what a great way to spend a morning!' She said
that across the counter, while gesturing to the
campus across the way, 'a music seminar, an
institute for Summer music study, with which
I somehow got involved.' I'd seen her before,
knew I knew her a hundred times. But so many
of these Princeton kids all look alike : or similar
in the way things with a group resemble the
group. I hope you know what I mean, Sonya.
-
Teaching rudimentary things, I thought to myself,
can be a debatable task. You're teaching, after all,
as much for the parents as for their kids. They 'want'
the idea that they're buying - my child the musical
one. And, anyway, how rudimentary is music really?
Ingrained, as they say a language is? A felicity for the
ear as words are for the tongue and eyes? I'd not know,
and now I'm too old too care. Little brats, darlings of
inattention, cookie crumbs and ineffective beings.
-
So anyway, good luck to that and good luck to her.
I figured I'd see her around again. She took her
double-espresso (I watched) and fled, out, out
into her vast and very musical day.

986. THE ART LOFT

THE ART LOFT
Just because you've got to have it -
the tools of a maestro, all those collected
cans and bottles - amplitude and true congestion.
Paint cans slobbered and dry with drip, old slathered
brushes, dried too and dimpled and pressed. I never
knew one place could hold so much. The accordion
folders of sketches , the sink with all that rust.
If you could just stop for a moment, you'd see
what I see - magnificent crazed matter, slats
of wood and plaster, a Gesso bucket over the
top with hardness. There are no steps to stand
on, as there are no limbs to break.

985. MY DREAMING

MY DREAMING
And oh how I dreamed of silver,
silver and you - gloss-gowned
hair on a head of jewels; fantasy
and phantasmagoria together
entwined and just as still.
-
Joseph Brodsky and Harold Bloom,
both are postage stamps now in the
mailroom of my mind - and a Walt
Whitman waterscape too. Robert Frost,
so sure-footed yet lost, in turn stopped
by for tea. We marveled at the glasses,
the water, the great New England sea.
'And I wasn't even born here,' he muttered,
'yet that's all they think of me.' But Rhea Schultz
was my real betrayal, an aid to make believe,

a matrix of all that be.
-
She smiled seriously and said: 'my life,
my own life of course, has a serious, sensuous
balance I've kept. Like mountains to the shoulder,
I've loved the sunlight and the rain together - as
anyone must, don't you think?' With that (my
memory says) she took my hand and quickly
kissed me. 'So let's be just more than friends, do
you mind?' We sat there for a moment. Some
coffee-waiter, or whatever they call them now,
brought a tray. Outside, the morning overmisted
whitely with a gentle fog - 23rd or 18th, what
was it, I don't remember. We savored the contentment
and it never wavered - and all the dreary cars were
dragging, while the homeless spat and some dogs
were barking on their twisted leashes.
-
'I am nothing really,' - she said again until I
abruptly stopped her. 'Why do you say that?
Stop it again - you are more than the sum of
your parts and, believe you me, those parts
are art.'
-
We came to a laugh at that, and stopped.
But all that - oh! - was long ago. My
God, how I miss the past.

984. DENBY

DENBY
And so much has been lost now
then Denby, let us count - all those
falling leaves now brown and brittle
on the ground are being dropped for
drought, or because of lack of water
at least. I want to see nothing wrong
with that, but cannot. Drought
withers, drought dries.
-
Henderson the Rain King - yes, that I
must read again. Perhaps therein some
clue resides : Western man, African natives,
enshrining someone as God, bringing rain
to a parched, dry land. But what does Chicago
know about the coast? Whose useless voice
now bellows on?
-
And, so, much has been lost. We live these days
despite, no less, the action; yet, nonetheless
bankers rage at rates, financiers finagle the
figures, and the reporters, those who say, they
just babble until their fat, salacious tongues fall
out for lack of either truth or water too. Like the
leaves, their dry and brittle tongues abhor
their own tiny moment.
-
I'd never know a thing, were I pressed to say.
My own knowledge is but bluster, a walking
cane down a street where only cars and buses
should go. And so, much has been lost, Denby;
let us count before we go.

983. AND ME AT THE GOD-DAMNED INFERNO

AND ME AT THE
GOD-DAMNED INFERNO
I wasn't twirling no spaghetti - only southern
monkeys did that. I hadn't left the car roof
down in no convertible rain. Fiat Schmiat;
this was all Ferrari or nothing at all. And
anyway, elephants have bigger toes.
-
This guy from Marina Del Vapor or
somewhere equally vague was acting
as a sorcerer to his own shady circus.
Together, as one, they all ate his beans
and circles, corn and rice, anything
he'd throw their way. They grew fat,
and they looked sickly to boot.
-
My diamond was the biggest in the room.
I'd stuffed it in my ear, where no one would
really have thought to look - till Madame
Villanueva, the chick from Kansas City,
stretched her awkward legs around my
waiting neck. I understood immediately -
and this was plenty of trouble now.
-
Tourists with their fucking cameras.
Little Chinese dudes endlessly yapping
on. Children, with dreams of great big
educations, crapping around the campus
like they came from God's very brood.
What the Hell? Gotta' be nice, can't
be rude. Welcome to the state
of Salacia; and climb aboard!

982. AT THIS VERY MOMENT (NOW)

AT THIS VERY MOMENT (NOW)
Oh Jesus my pulse is gone. People are passing by,

with their strollers and baby carriages, and I can't feel a thing.

It's as if, for this moment, I have beaten them to Death,

have gotten there first, have won some miserable war.

Their mouths I see are moving, but nothing at all comes forth -

same stupid gibberish, same mental froth.

Oh Jesus, my pulse is gone and I don't feel a thing.
-
When was the last time I felt my legs? You ask me that?

As if I'd know. My vision has fogged over, my arms

won't move, and I feel - absolutely now - as lazy as a corpse.

Would feel if it, perchance, were alive. Would feel if,

electrified, it came back to life. To life again.
To live and die as if none of this had ever
happened. I really need something now.
-
Face it, I'm done with Geology, and Literary Pursuit,

and Ideology and Ecology too. My directions are lost,

I'm on the road to Nowhere, not even knowing it's the

road to Hell. I see people, like fish, grappling with

hooks in the water - twisting and flailing

until, caught, they die.
If fish don't bleed, then what am I?
-
Myopic tendencies to flatter and flirt : I love your eyes, your
body's great, I bet those arms could hurt. Tendentious efforts
to bow down and grovel and kiss. You are everything to me,
with you I couldn't miss, a life of wedded bliss. All nothing,
now. Oh Jesus my pulse is gone, I'm fading fast,
I'm getting out of...this.

981. AMOS TAKES IT ON THE HIP

AMOS TAKES IT
ON THE HIP
I don't care if you don't like me.
They deflowered fifteen virgins in
twenty minutes. How many were
there? That was the question, as
posed in the capacious quiz-book
of crazy humor. I bought it for a
dime from a paraplegic on the
corner of Vine. He smiled.
-
There's not been a way to get
through the goldmine since
1954. I tried. I tried once, and
I tried again. My father then said,
'all that information that would
get you there, it was all lost in
the war - the Solomon Islands.
No one's ever found it again.'

-

He often talked funny like that.

980. IN FOR THE KILL

IN FOR THE KILL
(a prison doggerel)
Well it really doesn't matter if its green
or gold, I took you for something before
you were sold - and not a minute too soon
before you got old. The semblance of flying
was more than a thrill and I danced to
your namesake who came in FOR THE
KILL. And no sooner over than started again,
the man with the horseshoe whose name was Ken.
-
I trampled out the vineyards where the
grapes of wrath were stored. I grew
entranced by a very sneaky mind. I mowed
the rows made by the sweat of my brow. I
can't escape her, can't shake her, not now.
-
Yes it was me, salacious Billy Lee.
I moved in for the kill.
I did what I had to.
I'll be here
until...

979. AN AD LIB FROM THE EMBARCADERO CENTER

AN AD LIB FROM THE
EMBARCADERO CENTER
You commissioned my shame you moron
hip-swoon June moon Caligula you.
The five tables are set high, the ghost
marksman with the extra eye sets his
sights on you. Amazed and emulsified,
he emancipates the ledger, and there is
no one left to die. That wheeze I hear,
it's my own dear lungs lunging to die.
-
Tuesday was no different than the rest.
Alcatraz had deep-brewed Peet's all
over it - coffee smells a mile away.
-
Nothing ran down the urinal but water,
Pat at the tap thought it was apt.
-
I drank from the flask you were carrying.
'Whiskey for Gods,' you said. I
snapped back quickly. 'God
is dead? No? Dead!'
-
'I'll drink to that,' you smiled.
'You'll drink to anything,'
I said.

978. THE IMPULSE OF ORTHODOXY HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO SUPPRESS ANY WRANGLING

THE IMPULSE OF ORTHODOXY
HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO
SUPPRESS ANY WRANGLING
'Your Cecil B. DeMille chorus is
laughing at me. Like a fellata, I
watch you from the bottom up,
and then move away. There is
no other certainty like uncertainty.
The argument is the reality and
the absence of certainty is the
certainty. In the beginning was
the word, in the middle, and right
there at the close, word without
end, amen. And, oh, go ahead,
enjoy ye the Paradox.'

977. THIS SIMPLE LIFE WHICH FAILS

THIS SIMPLE LIFE WHICH FAILS
Praecipio Praecipiocus - a simple rare name,
written in steel right here, where all the
grass has turned brittle and brown.
As I walk this famed lawn, it crunches
underfoot. I read the names along the
wall - all dead, with all they took.
I guess I am here forever : on the edge
of this land, like a noun on an inland sea,
where these men mine their iron and the
girls have yet to be. An old mangled
corpse you call me? Weathered, perhaps,
but not mangled. I died of the age and was
buried here once. I rose from the dead in
the seventieth hour and I walked my way
back - to these creatures of land dragging
their tales and hearing their wails. It is all
for naught and matters little, really. With
no recompense, this simple life fails.

976. AMONG MY TEACHERS

AMONG MY TEACHERS
Amidst the equally earnest elements of Nature,
my ledger book now is staggered by form.
Words hang in the air where nightingales
flutter and periwinkles climb. I know no
matter but mine and thine. Yet is it all
(with new eyes) so circumscribed?
No, no, I say - there is more to what
exists than mine and thine alone and the
material is an insufficient vice with which
to translate. For Life itself is not this matter
(at all) and let's just leave it at that. I write
philosophy now, Andros - a new word in
a new world wherein I have new eyes
and my teachers mere lies.

975. BLUELIGHT, DEEP NIGHT

BLUE LIGHT, DEEP NIGHT
Wide night, singing night, starry night
not a light. How deepened are the
mysteries of why we stay? No moon,
new moon. Blue light, deep night.
-
My mind is like a dreamed oasis.
Wide water, sparkling edge.
Glisten and shine and reflect.
It all goes back to this:
blue light, deep night.

974. A SCAR ON THE TRUNK OF A SYCAMORE TREE

A SCAR ON THE TRUNK OF
A SYCAMORE TREE
Open wide the shining vision,
whitecoats on the streets of Rome.
'The Bride Vanished Before Daybreak!'
L'Osservatore Romano said the Pope,
'too old to live, too young to die,' was in trouble
once more. He bowed down before the tomb of
Romacarino Fluncarius, third prelate of the
Old City, and never again got up. Death comes
to the Archbishop. Ask not for whom the
tell bowls, or something. Wisteria blooms
in the courtyard of Life. I left, just then.
-
'No, no, no, and no, and, no again.
Yes, yes and yes, again and, yes, no.
Wherein and when? With, yes, again?
-
Uncle Loto's tree trunk bore the carving
of a dove. He himself had done it
when he was twelve. The tree had
grown, the bark had stretched, and
now that dove looked like nothing
more than a big splotch, a scar
on the trunk of a sycamore tree.

973. DICKINSON

DICKINSON
(all that powderpuff stuff)
I would not stop for Death, so Death
kindly stopped for me. All the rest, if you
have it committed, is a memory too lethal to
bring joy. She wrote in shadows and on the lam;
little papers and a cribbed tight hand. Silence was in her
closet. The weave of her fabric, a deadly, somber black.
-
I wouldn't know what to say if I met her today.
Rivals for affection? Seekers of the same old Truth?
Who's to say, or nod and agree? Not me. I'd remain as
silent as could be. 'Nice to meet you. This is me.'

972. LARGESS

LARGESS
I one time fought with Nature for being
what it was; and then I found out it,
in essence, hadn't really even been 'discovered'
as a concept until a few hundred years back.
Romantic drivel, it was turned into a function
to be destroyed. By Man. After that point,
I walked cautiously.
-
I looked homeward.
Finding nothing, I moved
along. All Gods were dead.
Nothing more rang true.
Now, from so little I have so much :
the great largess of a new world's bounty
has been thrown to me. With open arms, I
then accepted all that came my way. I lost but
little in the translation. It all read, word for word,
as good as it should ever have. Finally, I am happy.

971. ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS
They tore down the house to the foundation,
hours of toil and play : every bush and every
weed I ever saw is gone. Nothing left but
grime and superstition. This is where I
used to be.
-
Herringbone suits and galoshes made of
rubber. Metal clips held onto one another.
-
The smothering of the century was
just beginning. 'Look, look, it's a
Sputnik in the sky.' No one really
knew what to say. Up high.
-
The register of the key to
the music of the mind and heart,
I have heard-tell in distant
psych classes, is
the very same
register for
both.

970. MAD CONFUCIAN HAMMER

MAD CONFUCIAN HAMMER
(ny harbor, 1891)
'There was a time we settled off the coast -
waves gently lapping, water in the boats.
Then men in uniform came aboard -
a mad Confucian hammer striking with fists.
Molten words and broken steel.
Everything went down badly.
We were made to heel. Silently,
below decks, kept for days in chains.
It was a time of no sunrise, nor set.
Hours passed, hours between
sweat and pain and blood.
When we finally made sure
and they'd let us go, I was
unable to walk for days,
and I still remain afraid
of the piers to this day.'

969. SOMEONE HAS TOLD ME

SOMEONE HAS TOLD ME

Someone has told me now it's July 4th and I

should be proud of the parade. The old cars and

the battered geezers in the shapely uniforms from

another time and place. But the same. Freedom lies

dying where waters don't run. The old festive moods

make me sick. Just look for yourself and see.

-

I'm tired of this bloody gore - the misappropriated

meanings wherein legends are fed to the groveling

mass. Freedom died on these fields when men gave

their lives for nothing. We are enslaved in the grip

of malfeasance. Let's drink a toast to that!

-

The grimy old guys in their suits and ties, the

military buffoons from today and tomorrow -

saluting their sickened asses off whenever a flag

passes by. The men who play martial music, their

women who swoon for Liberty's moon. All lies

and incantations - sniveling lingo leading nowhere

at all. At your peril, oh Masters, you rise.

At your peril, you slaves, you fall.

968. I FOUND AN I

I FOUND AN I
It was only my Heaven at the
fourteenth rage. The schoolmistresses
were buying happy purses on the television
show, going home with empty pockets where
their minds should go. I was nothing indelicate
that I'd not been before : peeking in windows
while they stripped the mirrors raw - before me
and God and the world. 'What a strange pudenda!'
I was heard to comment. 'Yes. I got it on the show -
and it was worth every cent.'
-
I was a wastrel before I was an orphan.
I found an I at the bootblack stand.
That crazy man had said to me : 'Look
at that! My God, won't these fires ever cease?'
Tom Foolery to Penelope Smith.
We make our most lazy arrangements
before we ship.......away.
-
'The Bible say 'ever be vigilant.'
That's why I don't get but so drunk.
I gots ta' keep watch. Mr. Death,
and no he say nothin'. I say 'what
you want Mr. Death? You be wantin'
me?' He just stared at me - carrying
that sickle in his hand. He say, 'you
want bound for another year?' I say OK,
and, see, I'm yet here.
-
'And oh Hip Hiram, barrelin' nice through
the Atlas Mountains, I really did miss
too much of this life.'

967. HERE'S MY EYELINER JUST FOR YOU - WATCHING

HERE'S MY EYELINER JUST
FOR YOU - WATCHING
That crazy motion up on the screen, the
in and out pump like two porno stars
working, I can't figure it out. Oil well?
Piston in a cylinder? What is this?
-
The dog makes a noise, the cat rolls over
and meows, the dim lamp flickers. Yesterday's
old moon peters out, in today's new sky.
Somehow, this all connects. If Arthur
Conan Doyle walked in here right now,
I'd have to ask him what he thought.
-
It's been too long since rainwater paved
the streets, puddling in black lumps where
the indentations are. Low spots are all alike.
Things gather, and never leave. We're
left listening to the noise of the crowd.
-
It's after midnight now; the table, still set,
awaits guests who never showed. The
thin candle, nearly burned out now,
flickers with its own regrets. I know
the feeling myself, having just
now come from nowhere
to get myself here.

966. CLINGERS

CLINGERS
They're clinging to me like dope fiends,
clinging to the lamppost I hang on. Not a
gibbet nor a cross of steel could beat
this situation. Badness in the alley.
A mock fury in delight.
She too knows what's going on :
little girl lost, and her in skirts, wearing
that ring and smiling. I wouldn't want
to be there for that - no, man,
not at all.
-
It's a lack of luster that makes lackluster,
I suppose. It's the darkness on the
light side of the moon that
really makes us wonder.

965. I HAVE TO GET BACK

I HAVE TO GET BACK
'I have to get back to equilibrium,
how do I get there?'
'Uh, you can't get there from here'.
Shades of emendation from dark Satanic mills,
thundering lights along the seascape where
Turner dwells. London's cheery fog? 'Sa! Ain't
no such thing!' Trolley cars within lights and
taxi cabs in bunches. 'Didn't I eat this sandwich
already? Like last Tuesday?' So much confusion,
can't get no belief, businessmen they hear me cryin',
Plowmen dig my...what the hell is that?!...and you've
got it all wrong.' So stop your crying, run back home,
the Bradford County National Relief Fund still waits
for you. They have handouts for mothers and little
children too. You need socks? You need a new shirt?